Ariellus Must Wait
by xjabberwockyxpeacex
Summary: Rose finds out she's pregnant with the Doctor's child. How will the Doctor react?
1. Telling The Doctor

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. I can dream, but I really don't.**

**Hope you like it!**

She'd traveled through time and space; she'd battled creatures beyond even her wildest dreams. She'd seen cat people and werewolves and murderous metal men and debatably even more murderous pepper pots. She'd absorbed the Time Vortex and became the Bad Wolf. She'd met a man with two hearts and fallen in love with him. So much had happened to Rose Tyler in her lifetime, and yet, here she was, leaning over the bathroom sink, looking at the little piece of plastic that had a littler positive sign, staring at it as if it really couldn't be there, and she found herself more shocked and stunned and astonished than she had ever been in the whole of her life, of time and of space.

And that wasn't just because she was surprised that even in an alien space ship, the way to find out if you were pregnant was by a normal, human test bought from a drug store.

Fifteen minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom and absently walked to the console room of the Tardis. The Doctor was tinkering with the console, tightening a few of the bolts that had become loose since their last crash to Earth.

"So I was thinking," he said, speaking to Rose, though she barely heard his voice, "unless you have yet another suggestion for where we go to next—I thought you would've been a little more creative, seeing how you are from Earth, but it's hard to contradict you when you're _that_ forceful—I thought our next stop could be this planet called Ariellus, where everything's underwater and you can _actually_ speak to fish, isn't that fantastic? Mind you, the fish are quite territorial, but some of them can be fairly pleasant." He grunted as he finished tightening the bolts. Once finished, he threw the wrench up in the air, hurling it behind him and onto the top of a pile of other discarded tools. Rose's eyes widened. When the baby came—_Oh my God I'm having a baby_—all wrench-throwing would have to be abolished.

"But the view," he went on with a grin that melted her heart. "At night, when the three moons have aligned in just the right spot, the light sinks into the water and it very well might be the most gorgeous sight you've ever seen. Well, Rose? What'cha think? Rose?"

She snapped herself out of it and put a hand on the console for support. The Tardis hummed underneath her fingers. Of course, it already knew what was going on. Rose silently thanked the space ship for its support.

"Rose, have you been listening to anything I've said?" The Doctor asked, waving a hand in front of her face.

"Yes," she lied. "Of course I have."

"What did I just say, then?"

"Um… something about angry fish?"

He blinked at her—_My daft, beautiful human_—but shrugged it off. "Close enough. Anyway, so you want to go?"

"We can't, Doctor," Rose spoke clearly.

"But the view!" he pleaded childishly. "If we go now, we can make it just in time for the Aquatic Celebration—"

"Doctor, I'm pregnant."

Not a word was spoken by either of them for a long time. Even as probably the smartest man in the universe, it looked to Rose that he hadn't comprehended what she'd said. Then she wondered if maybe he hadn't heard her correctly. The silence was deafening, beating in her eardrums, waiting to hear his reply, so she decided to tell him again.

"Doctor, did you hear me? I said I'm—"

"With a baby?" he interrupted. She couldn't recall a time when he'd been paler.

She gave him pointed look. "Well, what else would I be pregnant with?"

"Ah. Right." He cast his distraught gaze to the floor. Rose screamed at him inside her head. What if he chucked her out of the Tardis? No, that wasn't like him at all. But what if he didn't want to be a father? What would happen to their life of running, always running, and travelling across the stars?

And most importantly of all, what would Jackie say? The thought was enough to terrify Rose. She became so distracted with her mental rants that she didn't see the rage clearly building up inside of the father of her child.

"Who is he?" he asked in a dangerously low voice. He clenched his fists against the Tardis. "Who's the father?"

Rose stared at him, bewildered. "Are you thick?"

"What?"

"It's you, of course!"

"Rose, don't be ridiculous. I mean, you know that I'm fond of you,"—Rose rolled her eyes at his inability to just say that he was in love with her; he was too cryptic for his own good—"but we haven't… you know."

"Yes we have. We were drunk, remember? We stopped by a pub after visiting Picasso. You got a taste of the wine and, well, the rest is sort of history." She gave him a weak smile, because the rest was indeed history, and the statement of it being history was a joke she and the Doctor—her Doctor—referred to on occasion. The Doctor didn't smile at the comment, however, but he also didn't frown. He was too busy trying to work something out in his head.

A minute later, a memory flooded his head.

"Oh," he said dumbly. "_Oh._ I think I remember now." His eyes widened. He glanced at the very companion he had fallen in love with and then at her stomach. It hit him like a hurricane.

"You're pregnant."

"Yes."

"With a child."

"Yes."

"My child."

"Yes."

"Making me the father of said child."

"Bingo."

"Oh."

There was another silence between them. The Tardis beeped, unable to contain her amusement, and watched her residents stare at each other, quietly passing thoughts and feelings and memories and everything else between them, even though neither were aware of it.

The Doctor said, "Oh," once again. Then he beamed at her. "Why, that's brilliant."

It felt as though a weight had been lifted. Rose sighed in relief and smiled. "Really?

"Yeah. I mean, if it is with you, of course."

"Well, yeah. I think it is."

"Good."

"Great."

Another moment passed.

"We're having a baby," he said breathlessly, and Rose grinned, biting down on her bottom lip because smiling this much hurt, and watched as upcoming fatherhood dawned on him with an excited glow.

He collapsed to the floor a second later.


	2. Telling Jackie

**I wasn't sure if I could stop procrastinating, but the people have spoken, so I have decided to continue with this story! I'm very excited, 'cause I literally have no idea what direction I'm heading in. It's an adventure. (OoOoOoOoOoO)**

**Be warned for future chapters if they take longer, because I have reason to believe that my computer is slowly committing suicide.**

**I also thank everyone for the lovely reviews that kept me going. :)**

**Disclaimer: I still don't own _Doctor Who_. I don't know why anyone would think that, in the past week since I last said this, I've suddenly dominated the BBC.**

**Enjoy.....!!**

The Doctor had speculated. He had told Rose not to tell, but apparently, being the father of her child didn't mean she had any further reason to actually listen to him. He would have been perfectly happy if, after the baby had been born, they'd raised it without having to tell _that woman_. He knew that spilling the beans would have ended badly, no matter when they told her, and he had only imagined that it was going to turn out this bad.

The Doctor had speculated that Jackie Tyler was completely insane. That was why he kept a good distance in between himself and the elder Tyler, because he did not like being slapped before, and he certainly would not like be punched now.

"_Pregnant_?" Jackie shrieked. The mug of tea that was in her hands fell from her grasp and hit the floor, shattering into pieces. "_Pregnant_?! With a baby?!"

"Why is that concept so hard to understand?" Rose muttered to herself.

"Well, you can't blame me for wondering. I mean, if it is this string bean's child—"

"Hey, there's no need for name-calling," the Doctor claimed, rather bravely. Jackie shot him an icy look and he shrunk back into the corner, never daring to speak ever again.

Leaving the broken ceramic on the floor, Jackie fell into the nearest chair and spoke with her daughter in hushed tones, indicating that if the Doctor knew what was good for him, he wouldn't overhear. "Rose, how could this have happened?"

Rose reached out and put a hand on her mother's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mum, I really am."

"And how do you suppose you're going to raise this child? You won't be able to muck about the universe with a baby strapped to your chest."

"I know, Mum. We're going to be really careful. We're already banning visitations to the planets that want us dead."

Jackie decided to be smart and pretend that she hadn't heard that. "And you're sure he's the father?" She gestured to the very frightened string bean in the corner who was pretending to be looking at a picture of the Tyler family from a vacation to Bermuda.

Rose nodded.

"You'll have an awfully energetic child."

Rose nodded again, more vigorously this time.

"And you plan on living in the Tardis?"

"There's plenty of room. We're in the process of picking a color scheme for the nursery as we speak."

Jackie bit her lip. She wasn't sure how much she liked the sound of all these changes. It was obvious, though, that Rose had her mind set on this, so Jackie only asked the most important question that would ultimately help her choose whether she was happy or not.

"And do you love him?"

It was a question that she had asked before, but every time she did, Rose always lied, because she didn't want to mess anything up between herself and the Doctor. Rose glanced up at her string bean of a fellow. Now that things couldn't have been any more different, there was no reason to lie.

"Yes," she said firmly, watching as the Doctor accidentally knocked over a little horse figurine. "Yes, I do love him."

Jackie sighed. With Jimmy Stone, she hadn't known what her daughter was doing or if Rose had any idea that she did either, and Jackie didn't think that things would ever end up like normal again. She couldn't say that her only daughter being pregnant with an alien man's child—_Oh my God I'm going to be a grandmother_—was normal in the slightest, but she noticed the sparkle in Rose's eyes whenever the girl looked at the Doctor and all she could do was think of Pete and how she'd light up when _he'd_ enter a room and wish that he was here.

"All right," she finally said, and she smiled at Rose, and Rose smiled back, truly relieved once again for the second time that week. "So I'm going to be a grandmother, hmm? I suppose we'll need to baby-proof the rest of the flat. No more Christmas trees. Ever. And furthermore…" She got to her feet and went up to the Doctor. He flashed a meek smile, unsure of whether he'd live to see tomorrow. To his surprise, Jackie hugged him tightly. He turned bright red when she kissed him on the cheek.

"Erm… thanks," he said.

"For what?" she asked like the whole of time and space hadn't just shifted under their feet.

"For not killing me."

Rose and Jackie laughed.

"Doctor, you're so funny," Jackie chuckled. "Listen, I've got some old baby books stashed somewhere in my room from when Rose was born. I'll find them for you." She grabbed the Doctor's face and gave him another quick kiss on the cheek before leaving the expecting couple alone.

Rose heaved a sigh and fell back into the chair. "Oh, thank God for that. For a second, I thought she was going to chuck us out."

"Is your mother emotionally deranged?" questioned the Doctor.

"No."

"Oh." He sat down beside her. "So she's just a simple mad woman?"

Rose grinned at him. "I thought you already knew that."

"I like to be completely certain of my facts." Timidly, the Doctor placed a hand atop hers. She stared at him, and he looked down at his feet, like he was an awkward boy on a date with a girl for the first time. Rose felt like a girl in love with a boy for the first time. She wove her fingers through his.

"If you like to be so sure, then tell me this: Do you really think we can do this?" It was probably from the hormones, or perhaps she would have cried even if she wasn't pregnant, but she started to tear up all of a sudden. The wave of emotions came on her hard.

But then again, if she wasn't pregnant, she wouldn't have asked such a question.

From the Doctor's reaction to the news of the baby, Rose had assumed that she would have been the one consoling him about his fatherhood and her motherhood and the overall parenthood and every other "—hood" in existence, but now she didn't think she could have been filled with any more doubt. What if she was a bad mother? What would become of the Tardis? She wasn't even thirty yet. How could she raise a child _in a space ship_ when she couldn't even properly use a toaster without nearly electrocuting herself?

As if the Doctor could read her emotions and thoughts (and he probably could), he squeezed her hand. Not hard, not gently, but in just a way that made Rose know that everything would be all right, because he was there beside her.

"Yes, Rose. I do really think we can do this."

The tears that had threatened to spill fulfilled their warning. The cascaded down the rosy cheeks of the mother-to-be, and even continued to do so as the very mother-to-be leaned over and pressed her lips lightly to the Doctor's for first time.

At least, the first time that they could remember.

_Everything will be all right_, she thought.

They didn't break apart for while. Not even when Jackie returned and told them that, by the looks of it, they'd never _not_ be with child.


	3. Of Pink Sugar And The Little Alien Baby

**I've done it! I had no idea how I was going to do this chapter, but here it is. I'm actually really pleased with how this turned out. It has no plot really, just a cute snippet of a moment in Rose's baby-carrying life with references to what was going on while I was writing this (example: I was listening to "Yellow Submarine" and "Love Shack" and my brother was playing Guitar Hero a few feet away from me). Once again, I thank everyone for their reviews and support. I am quote proud of this chapter, so I hope it is enjoyed by the people as much as it was by _moi_.**

**Disclaimer (which I cannot spell properly): I do not own _Doctor Who_. Simple as that.**

Rose had been kidding herself when she thought that carrying a half-Time Lord/Lady child would make pregnancy different, and by different, she meant easier, but now, sitting over the sea of baby books from Gallifrey (it took her a while just to get over the fact that Gallifrey—the beautiful, glorious, so advanced planet of Gallifrey—actually _had_ baby books), she realized that she couldn't have been more wrong.

1: The morning sickness was unbearable. Every simple move she made would make her feel nauseous. And eating out on such strange planets was no help either. Ever since she'd first met the Doctor, she'd gotten into the habit of not asking what she was eating, because the answers she'd get weren't ones she liked. She still didn't know what she was eating, but the baby did. It knew and it made her regret eating whatever it was that she had ate.

2: Then there were the cravings, because in much contrast to the morning sickness, Rose had been craving the strangest of things. At first it was chips, mounds of them, which she couldn't say was a bad thing. Then came the pickles, and the steak, and the mangos, and the duck. Then came the alien foods. Out there were planets beyond planets of different cuisines, and Rose had about enough cravings to have them all. Her favorite so far (because when she ate it, the baby did not make her regret it and she herself actually liked it) was the Yyornvinenn dish from the planet Leedalsing. In English terms, it was breaded chicken in marinara, with spaghetti and these maroon-colored leaves that tasted like pears. The delicacy made Rose's mouth water every time she saw it.

Another craving was bananas, but Rose understood this entirely.

3: Apparently, the baby did not want her to sleep—ever. Rose tossed and turned so many nights that she thought she might die from exhaustion. Her eyes hurt from her lack of sleep, her knees were sore from moving so much, her head was heavy—and she was still only in the first trimester. According to the baby books, sleep was one of the most important factors in carrying a Time Lord/Lady child, because without the proper amount of sleep, one of the baby's hearts could stop. The Doctor made sure that this wouldn't happen by seeking out what had to be the world's comfiest bed in the entire galaxy, and then surrounding Rose in so many pillows that she might accidentally suffocate herself. When this didn't work, however, he began searching through the Tardis library for something a plan B.

And it was for this reason that Rose was browsing over every single baby book she could find. The fireplace in front of her crackled with the silent flames, soothing her worries whenever she thought up some scenario in which something—whether with the pregnancy or her relationship with the Doctor—could go wrong.

The Doctor jumped out from behind a bookcase to her right and yelled out, "JUICE!"

Rose lifted her head. "What?"

"Juice!" he repeated, rushing to her side. "I found a recipe for this concoction—funny word, 'concoction'—that will cure you of your sleep deprivation like that!" He snapped his fingers in front of her face. She blinked. "We need to make a couple of stops first. We require some type of pink sugar and apple grass."

"Like this kid actually _needs_ more sugar." She patted her stomach tenderly. "Though I could really go for some apple grass right now."

"Who couldn't, really?" He tossed the book aside, and when he sighed and looked at his surroundings, he noticed the swarm of baby books. "Bit of light reading, dear?"

"You're one to talk," she scoffed. "I'm only thinking ahead. I thought you would have admired me for it."

"Rose, if I hadn't already admired you, you wouldn't have a reason to be looking at all these books."

She couldn't help but smile at this. "So, where do we have to go to fetch this pink sugar and apple grass?"

"Well, there are plenty of good places that sell pink sugar. Apple grass, however, is a bit harder to come by. I was thinking that we could fly off to the one place in the universe that has 'em both."

Rose gasped. "You mean—?"

"Right-o, my faithful companion."

* * *

New Earth was just as spellbinding as it was the last time, only on this visit, her body wasn't being taken over—at least, not by a psychotic brain/skin/whatever thing. The sweet scent of the apple grass invaded Rose's nose, and it took all the strength she had left to keep from throwing herself on the ground and ripping off shreds of the grass like a savage cow. Waltzing through the streets, arm-in-arm with the Doctor, she gazed at the beautiful architecture of each building, some short, some tall; some round, some wide, and some even shapes that she couldn't identify because they had yet to be invented in 21st century Earth. She and the Doctor took a right down an avenue that was entirely green. To her left was a giant yellow building that looked like a submarine.

"How'd you like to raise Little Alien Baby in that?" she joked.

"What? The Tardis suddenly isn't good enough for you?" The Doctor looked fake-offended.

"It's not that, but, you know, there haven't been any songs made up about living in a Time and Relative Dimensions in Space… ship."

The Doctor shrugged. "I s'pose I could make one up."

"You should."

"I will. We could sing it to Little Alien Baby."

"I think you mean _I _could sing it to Little Alien Baby."

"I'm hurt, Rose. I'm a fantastic singer."

"You murder 'Love Shack' whenever you're in the shower—and yes, I can hear your hit list, even from the console room."

"You're lying."

"The Tardis laughs at you, you know. I'd tell it—her, whatever—to act more polite, but I can never seem to manage to speak while I'm in a hysterical fit on the floor." She smiled, biting down on her bottom lip, at the Doctor's grimacing expression.

_I wonder if Little Alien Baby will have my smile or his._

They turned left, down a street with people bustling this way and that, racing to get to different sections of an open marketplace. From what Rose could see, vendors were selling everything, from food to clothes to games and books and souvenirs and anything else that she could think of. She held onto the Doctor's arm tightly so as not to get lost in the crowd.

"So, where's this pink sugar?" she shouted over the hustle and bustle.

"It should be down here somewhere!" the Doctor shouted back. He craned to see if he could spot the needed ingredient from their spot in the middle of the road. When he realized such easy scouting wasn't going to happen, he pulled Rose over to a small alley, away from the crowd.

"Here." He gave her a handful of money. "We may be here a while. I'll find the pink sugar and maybe a recipe on how to make Yyornvinenn without setting it on fire."

"That's unlikely," Rose commented.

"Indeed. But anyway, go enjoy yourself. Find some wants, buy some needs. When you're done, just meet me at the pub on the next street over and give me a call. I don't want to see you empty-handed when we head back to the Tardis, you got that?"

Rose saluted, practically jumping on her heels. "Roger, captain."

The Doctor beamed and planted a quick kiss on her forehead. "Have fun."

When he was gone, she took a moment to keep from tipping over, she was so breathless.

Without the faintest idea where she was going, she managed to wander into a small shop filled with baby clothes and cribs and other trinkets for infants that Rose had seen in a baby shop she'd worked at during her brief time as a shop girl. There was a wall in the corner devoted to maternity wear, and some didn't look too bad for futuristic clothing. She picked out a green shirt in particular.

"Are you wearing a Concealed Stomach?" A woman not much older than her (though, in reality, Rose was _much_ older than the woman) came up to her, smiling pleasantly. Her name tag read Moira.

Rose frowned. "A… Concealed Stomach?"

"Obviously not. They're special clothes that hide the baby bump. Personally, I don't like them. Kind of tacky. Here." The shop girl Moira pulled a fake pregnant stomach off of a shelf and handed it to Rose. "It'll help decide which clothes look best when you're in later trimesters. And you should try on that." She pointed to a purple, butterfly-sleeved blouse. Before Rose could respond, she set it in Rose's arms and grabbed two other blue shirts in different shades and a black jacket. "Go. Changing room time."

Rose didn't think that opposing the shop girl Moira would be plausible, so she obediently did as she was told and headed for the nearest changing room. Closing the door, she peeled off her shirt, put the fake baby stomach in place, and put on the purple shirt.

"How's it look?" Moira asked from the other side of the door.

"Great." The stomach looked so real that, for a second, Rose actually thought it _was_ real. She brushed her hand over the soft fabric of the purple shirt, wishing that she could know everything about Little Alien Baby, what it would look like, who it would be, _what_ it would be. Suddenly, a sharp twinge went through her head, like a burst of energy given to her by a total stranger. It was only for a millisecond, and she almost considered the fact that it hadn't even happened, but her eyes trailed down to her stomach and she remembered something she'd read earlier that day.

_A Time Lord baby connects with its mother throughout the pregnancy, as it develops the abilities for mental links as early as the first month. Such connections grow stronger and more defined as the baby matures. To the mother, they will feel like a rush of emotions that are not their own. Once the nine months are over and the baby is delivered, the baby and the mother will have a permanent link with each other._

Rose couldn't believe it. The baby was trying to connect with her.

"You okay in there?" came Moira's voice, bringing Rose back into reality.

"What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." Rose tried to put aside the thoughts of the baby—_Good luck with that_—and continued with her search for a future wardrobe.

* * *

About seven various sized bags hung off her arm. Rose waltzed out of the fifth shop she'd visited that day. Thankfully, the handful of money the Doctor had given her was more than enough. She still had some left over, but because she felt like passing out, she figured finding the Doctor to return to the Tardis would be appropriate.

Contrary to their plan, however, Rose needn't call the Doctor to meet her anywhere. She'd already found him.

It was a vintage shop, with things from 21st century Earth. The Doctor had gathered a crowd around him, so Rose had to push her way through to see him—and laugh—while he played an old version of Guitar Hero.

"Hey, Rose!" he exclaimed happily when he had the chance to look away and grin at her. "Look who's the musical one now!"

_Whatever Little Alien Baby will be_, she thought to herself, _the least I know of it is that, if it's anything like its father, it will be completely mad and utterly adorable._

Rose wondered if Little Alien Baby could feel what she was feeling, too. If it could, then it was feeling the same amusement that she was experiencing.

* * *

"I felt the baby today." Rose lay in her bed, groggily sprawled over the mattress and sheets, with the Doctor sitting in a chair beside her. He was waiting to see if the special sleeping potion he'd prepared for her actually worked. Rose knew it was, and really, he did, too, but neither wanted to admit it, because neither wanted him to leave.

"How do you mean?" the Doctor asked softly. He brushed back a falling lock of her blonde hair.

"I was trying on clothes in a maternity shop and I felt a spark. I dunno. I read about the connections mothers have with their children during pregnancy. I _actually_ felt it, Doctor!" She patted her stomach. It was becoming a habit now. "It felt like nothing I've ever felt before."

"How do you know if you've never felt it before? Maybe you have felt it before and you just forgot, so now you think that you haven't because you can't remember it."

"Don't be such a smartass."

The Doctor gave her a teasing grin. "Do you think I could try?"

"Try what?"

"Well, being a Time Lord and all, I can feel the emotions, too."

She blinked in surprise. "You're asking my permission to feel the feelings of your own child?"

"You'd be stunned to find how many mothers are against lanky men coming up to them and holding their stomachs to tell them how their baby is feeling. It's not the most appreciated gesture in the galaxy."

Rose nodded. "Go ahead."

Carefully, as if he thought one false move would break her, the Doctor lifted Rose's shirt to reveal only her midriff. She took in a breath when he placed two freezing hands over her stomach. He blushed and mumbled an apology, then closed his eyes to concentrate.

"Well?" she whispered anxiously.

He took his precious time to answer. After a minute, he said, "It likes you. Quite a lot, actually."

"Really?"

"It likes me, too."

"What else?" Rose forgot all about being exhausted. She wanted to know more. She was desperate to know more.

But the Doctor said, "That's all," and pulled her shirt back over her stomach. "It's too early to determine anything else."

"Oh." She sighed. She tried to convince herself that this was better, that as Little Alien Baby grew, she'd be able to find more out about it, and that that was best for all of them. She figured that knowing too much would ruin the surprise.

"It likes us," she said gently, and she and the Doctor shared a proud look, one that would repeat itself many other times within the remaining eight months.

With the Doctor watching over her, Rose drifted off and fell soundly asleep for the first time in a while.


	4. An Attempt

**This chapter and myself have had a love-hate relationship over the course of the week, but we've finally made amends. It's talking to me, I am talking to it; we've set our differences aside and become BFFs. I had about fifty-thousand or so different endings, but it wouldn't be me if it didn't end with what I ended it with.**

**My regards go out to all the reviews and wonderful people who care enough to read this story, and once again, (DISCLAIMER TIME!!!! WOOT WOOT), I do not own _Doctor Who_.**

"Something smells awfully good." The Doctor poked his head in the kitchen—half for the amusement of having only a head in a room, and half because, if the breakfast Rose was making decided to explode, he could easily move out of the way. He surveyed Rose's suddenly domestic antics. Usually, she left the cooking to him, and usually, since he wasn't domestic, he left the cooking to other people on other planets. It was a nice system they had.

But due to Little Alien Baby, Rose had decided that knowing how to successfully prepare food was necessary to both herself and the Doctor, who insisted that their old method was better because he simply could not do domestic and didn't want her working so hard.

But unfortunately, getting a person pregnant meant that said person did not care that their partner did not do domestic. Rose was set on learning how to cook at least one thing for each meal.

So far, she had toast down.

"I should hope so," she said. "I've been working at it since six this morning. Keeps burning, but I'm optimistic. No fires, no explosions, and therefore, it's all good." She stirred the liquid in the frying pan that would magically turn into eggs soon. The Doctor, deciding that it was safe to come in, entered the room with his hands clasped behind his back. He stood over Rose, resting his head on her shoulder, and anxiously awaited when the liquid-eggs would turn into normal scrambled eggs. He found the process exciting.

He didn't know why.

"Wait—you've been up since _six_?" He peeled his eyes away from the frying pan to look at Rose. "_Six_?"

She shrugged. "I suppose. I mean, you can't really tell time in the Tardis, but my watch is still set to normal Earth time, so it's only a guesstimate."

"You should sit down," he told her in her ear. Since he was still resting his head on her shoulder, he couldn't see her face, but he felt her smile all the same.

"I'm fine, Doctor."

"Rose, I think _I_ would know best. I'm over nine hundred years old."

"Really?" she said in a tone of fake surprise. "You don't look a day over eight hundred and seven."

"Funny. Like I haven't heard that one before." He paused to revel in the scrambled eggs taking on a mildly solid form, and then went on, "Isn't it that humans are supposed to try to _avoid_ as much work as possible? That's why they have cars and scooters and things, because they can't be bothered to do anything for themselves."

"Well, you're not too hot yourself, buddy. And you can't really say much, anyway. Not only will Little Alien Baby have human, lazy arse traits, but you also have one of those can't-be-bothered scooters in your bedroom."

"It was on sale! How could I say no? And I look so good in the helmet." He frowned. "How did you know that I keep the scooter in my bedroom?"

Rose stopped cooking the eggs and turned to give him a pointed look—_Are you really the man that's saved millions of planets, or is the father of my child some dim look-alike?_

He blinked. "Oh. Right." He gave her a quick smile. "Remember that you love me and all my brief lapses of stupidity?"

She pretended to act halfhearted and heaved an exasperated sigh. "I recall something like that. Oh, would you mind putting some bacon in the microwave? I think this batch of eggs is actually gonna work out."

"I imagine I have no choice in the matter." He detached himself and went on the search for bacon. When he found some, he put a plate of it in the microwave, only to take out another plate of pancakes. "I didn't know microwave pancakes had been invented _before_ 2045."

Rose's face lit up. "Isn't it cool? Well, maybe not really cool, but handy. Last time we stopped by Mum's, she got all these organic foods for us. Good for Little Alien Baby, they are. The pancakes are wheat, gluten, and dairy-free."

"Where was I when all this happened?"

"It was when Mickey showed you his fireworks collection and then you took him to meet Guy Fawkes."

"Oh, that's right! You remember when I took you to meet him?"

She nodded. "I thought he was lovely."

"A little rough around the edges, but overall, a good fellow." The Doctor sniffed the pancakes cautiously. They seemed safe. He straightened to tell Rose this when he noticed how pale she looked. "Rose, are you all right?"

She didn't answer immediately. She frowned to herself, and after a minute, groaned. "I don't think I'm so hungry for eggs anymore." She swore very loudly and then bolted out of the kitchen. The Doctor sighed. The bacon was left sitting in the microwave as he left to follow his companion/whatever else she was in their unlabeled relationship.

He found Rose bent over the toilet. On pure habit, he brushed back the falling locks of blonde that got in the way of her face. _Her hair is incredibly soft_, he said to himself, only to shake the thought from his mind when he realized how now was not the time to be thinking of what shampoo Rose used.

Rose let out a more-than-audible moan off distress. "I hate you so much," she muttered.

"Do not."

"Do too."

"Don't."

"Do."

"Don't."

"Do—" But she cut herself off by vomiting more into the toilet.

The Doctor gazed over her bending figure in contemplation. Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth, the Bad Wolf, and the mother of a half-human, half-Time Lord child. Could he really be a father again? And with a mere human—not that she was mere anything. She was more than mere. Rose Marion Fearless Mere-less Tyler. That's what Jackie and Pete should have named her.

But of course, they couldn't have known that their daughter would grow up and meet a remarkably handsome alien man who would whisk her off to see the stars and times and such and eventually, well, impregnate her.

But what would happen when she grew old and he didn't? What if he lost her, like all his other companions? And what if he lost his child at the same time? Too many questions took over his brain and cried mutiny. Thankfully, he was used to it by now.

Here was Rose. She was having a Little Alien Baby. His Little Alien Baby. The idea of this still seemed unimaginable, but Rose standing over the toilet was enough proof for him. And she loved him—_What's not to love? Oh, stop being so cocky, spaceman_—and he loved her. Right? Of course he did. Why couldn't he just admit it? He would have slapped his forehead, but he didn't want to let go of Rose's soft, strawberry-scented hair.

It was then, as Rose let go of the final remnants of her stomach, that the Doctor decided that he was not going to lose this companion. Not for anything, not even the small and implausible chance that the Time Lord race could ever return.

"I'm in love with you," he blurted before he could stop himself, and Rose whirled on him and stared like he was a crazy man.

Which he was.

"You decide to tell me this _NOW_?! Are you daft?"

He considered this. "Probably."

Rose's anger was gone in an instant, because it was hard to stay mad at the Doctor, especially when he was admitting his feelings for you. He passed her a towel and then slid down to the floor, resting his head against the tiled wall. Rose flushed the toilet, washed out her mouth, and then joined him.

"Why the sudden revelation?" she asked. "Not that I'm complaining."

"I've known and loved and lost a lot of people in my time," he explained, watching the opposite wall as if it would jump and attack him. "I was a father once before. I lost everything when Gallifrey… I'm not gonna let that happen to you or Little Alien Baby." He tore his eyes away from the treacherous structure and met Rose's gaze, taking her smaller hands in his larger ones. "Rose Mere—I mean, Marion—Tyler, will you marry—?"

But before he could fully propose, Rose slapped a hand over his mouth. She frowned to herself. "Do you smell that?"

The Doctor blinked. He was trying to ask her to marry him, and yet, she was more concerned with what _scent_ was being emitted throughout the Tardis? _I will ultimately never understand humans._

"No, Rose, I don't smell anything. Do _you_ smell something?"

She cast him a glare. "Don't mock me. There _is_ something odd. It smells like… like something's burning! Damn, it's the eggs!" Before the Doctor could stop her, she fled the room, leaving him on the bathroom floor, alone and positively stumped.

"She ditched me for a fire!" he muttered irritably to himself. He sighed. "Humans."

The Doctor vowed he would ask Rose Tyler to marry him. He would get a ring and go down on one knee and make sure there was nothing that could spontaneously combust in the process of said proposal and everything. It would be perfect. He would ask her, most definitely. Just not today.

When he returned to the kitchen, the eggs were no longer eggs or anything visible. They were things in a frying pan, half covered in the foam from a fire extinguisher, half in flames.

He finally suggested going out for breakfast, and a fed-up Rose agreed.

**It's ironic that with most of the things I write about, fire/explosions always seem to worm themselves into my brain, especially since I only find fire cool in theory. I'd be terrified if my stove caught on fire for real.**


	5. Not Expecting The Unexpected

**Let's mix it up! I'm gonna say I don't own _Doctor Who_ first! Here goes nothing. Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who_.**

**How epic was that?**

**I'm a bit fickle with this chapter. I wrote it in a day, and I've actually been planning this storyline for a while, but it's only slightly different than the other chapters, probably because this one _has_ a plot. It's kind of the opener for the next chapter and later ones. So we'll see if I evolve to like it. I hope y'all do, too.**

**Thank you for all the followers and reviews and such. It's the only thing that helps me to keep on keepin' on.**

The year: 1859. This is the year the steamboat sails for the first time, the year Charles Darwin publishes _On the Origin of Species_. Jules Leotard performs the first flying trapeze act in a circus in Paris. Charles Dickens publishes _A Tale of Two Cities_. Vulcan, the possible planet to orbit inside Mercury, was discovered.* Gas lighting is introduced in Hawaii. A man from San Francisco claims to be the emperor of America.

This was also the year the Doctor and Rose crash-landed in the back of an alley, just in front of a fire made by a homeless man. The man gaped at the blue box that had magically appeared and staggered to his feet, running to tell anyone and everyone of this discovery.

The Doctor emerged from the Tardis. Specs of white snow drifted into his brown hair and across his black suit, making him look like he was wearing polka dots. He glanced at fire, taking in the momentary warmth, and waited for Rose.

Inside the Tardis, the very person the Doctor was waiting for looked at herself in front of a full-length mirror. The color of her Victorian dress was just a deeper shade of the color of her name, with a floral-patterned bodice and a skirt that was ruffled to the bottom trim. Her eyes, however, were on her waist, as they had been whenever she put on something so close-fitting. It was a challenge to fit into the dress, but she barely managed it. Now, in her third month of pregnancy, the bump was becoming distinguished, at least to her. She figured the dress would be all right to wear to the Victorian function she and the Doctor were planning to crash, but perhaps this would be the final time for wearing something so literally fitting for a while. She grabbed the matching burgundy shawl and handbag that hung off the mirror and raced out to meet the Doctor in the snow-covered streets of London.

The ball was celebrating the anniversary of Lord and Lady Fairaway. The Doctor told her earlier that he had met Lord Fairaway once while chasing a dog (though in all honesty, Rose was much more intrigued by why the Doctor had been chasing a dog in the first place than his meeting with Lord Fairaway), and the two men had run into each other, immediately striking up a bond over the most current advances of scientific discovery, such as the habits of worms. The chance meeting with the pleasant man gave the Doctor reason enough to invite himself to a function that the Lord would be attending, in the hopes that the two of them could have yet another intellectual conversation.

He wouldn't admit it, but Rose also figured he wanted an excuse to use a cane he'd picked up from an old thrift shop.

"Hold on," she said, stopping her partner in crime in front of the doors to the Fairaway estate to straighten his crooked bowtie. "There. You're good."

"Really? You don't think the cane is too much?" The Doctor examined the staff in his right hand, the one with a small silver lion head. Rose found the walking stick to be rather tacky, but the Doctor had been so excited to have a reason to use it that she didn't want to ruin his fun.

"Not at all," she fibbed firmly. "There are probably fifty other blokes in this joint carrying around far more extravagant things. Look, that guy has a cane, too. It's fine."

"Good. The last thing I'd want to be is tasteless." He held out his arm to Rose. She took it, and he led her to the entrance of the manor, where the two continued to lie by using the psychic paper as their invitation.

The ballroom was alive with guests and chatter and the sparkling of sparkling things and things that sparkled, such as the crystal statue centerpiece of a table or the chandelier hanging thirty feet above their heads. The entire room itself had to be bigger than the whole of the Powell Estate. Elegancy hung in the air, from the orchestra playing music in the corner, to the tables and silverware, the freshly cut flowers, and even the passive servers that sneered on the sidelines of the room, observing the guests who had already divulged themselves into too much alcohol. Rose felt dizzy, taking everything in, but she found that her lightheadedness was less from Little Alien Baby and more because she suddenly came to realize that she—_Great timing, Rose_—was slightly claustrophobic.

"Have you ever seen a ceiling that big?" Rose whispered, astounded beyond measure by the ballroom.

By the looks of it, the Doctor was equally stunned. "Forget the ceiling! Look at the chandelier! And you think the cane is too much." Rose turned to him, about to deny his statement, but he waved a hand and added, "Come now, Rose. You're a very bad liar and I'm extremely clever."

"Wow. You haven't even had a drink yet and your head's already taking up the room. That has to be a new record, Doctor."

The Doctor chuckled. "Ah, Rose. So funny. D'you hear that music? That's the symphony of your snarky attitude. It's a remarkable feat, for me to say that I was there when it was composed."

"That's not saying much, considering you also say that you were there when the created Spam."

"Now _that_ was extraordinary!"

"Mr. Smith?" An elderly couple, fully adorned in the accessories of the Victorian era, approached the Doctor and Rose. The balding man who, coincidentally, supported himself with a cane in his left hand, grinned at the Doctor. "My goodness, is that you?"

"Lord Fairaway!" beamed the Doctor, taking the man's free hand into his own. "What a lovely surprise!"

"Erm, it's our party."

"Right, well, I just mean, a surprise to see that you're so free to talk. I figured, being the host of the extravaganza, you would be too caught up in all that rotten mingling to chat."

"A good host always makes time for each guest, young man," said the woman wisely. "Lady Cynthia Fairaway." She held out her hand for the Doctor to kiss, and he did.

"John Smith, milady, and this is my assistant, Rose Tyler."

Rose curtseyed to the Lord and Lady of the house. "Pleasure to meet you. You have a beautiful home."

"Likewise, my dear, and thank you," said Lord Fairaway. "So, Mr. Smith, tell me how your research in the field of microorganisms is coming along."

"Very well, Lord Fairaway. I think I'm on the verge of a major discovery."

"Really?" The Lord took an obvious interest in the piece of information. "Care to elaborate over a drink?" He snapped his fingers, and at once, a server with a tray of wine glasses was at his side. He and his wife each took one, and the Lord gestured for the Doctor and Rose to as well.

"Actually, we'll just have water," the Doctor said to the server, who nodded and left to go retrieve the suggested liquid.

"Fair enough, John," Mr. Smith said. "Probably better for you, anyway. Now, you were speaking of a discovery?"

"Oh, yes, I…"

Rose felt the Lady Fairaway tug on her arm. "Come, my dear. You must be exhausted of all this shop talk."

Rose smiled. "Well, you're half right." She muttered to the Doctor, "Don't let your head take over the manor," to which he replied, "Can't make any promises." She then allowed the Lady Fairaway to lead her away from the Doctor and the Lord and further into the mix of people who made funny drunks.

"My husband tells me that you and Mr. Smith travel, is that right?"

"Indeed, Lady Fairaway. Myself, Mr. Smith, and the pink elephant that insists on following our every move."

The old woman laughed heartily. "You've got a quick tongue. I like that about a young girl. But honestly speaking, I must ask—I'm a bit of a gossip, you should know—are you being courted by any plausible suitors? It seems almost a waste, to travel some extensively, without an idea of your future."

"My future is with the Doctor," Rose answered before she could stop herself. She realized her slipup and blushed. "Forgive me if that was speaking out of context. I'm not used to trying to hold back."

"Oh, don't worry, Miss Tyler. It's just us girls." Lady Fairaway gave a wink. "I won't tell. Although, even if I were to say something to my husband, I imagine I'd be brushed off like dust on a mantle. He doesn't care for the intrigue of the rumor mill. But your secret is safe with me."

Rose brightened. She had always been given the idea that Victorian times were more for snobbish women throwing themselves at prospective husbands, but Lady Fairaway may have been a nice exception.

Cynthia took her around the ballroom, introducing her to friends and colleagues and gentlemen, as if the Lady wanted Rose to be courted by other suitors before ultimately choosing the Doctor, or John Smith, or whatever he chose to be called. Rose remained polite to each guest, however snooty they may have been presented to her as, but she found herself consistently drawn to where the Doctor stood by Lord Fairaway and a group of other men and women. The Doctor caught her gaze and waved a few times, and each time, she had to lean on Lady Fairaway to keep from swooning.

"… Let's see, who else is here…?" Lady Fairaway glanced around the room, determined to present Rose to the whole of England. Her eyes settled on a blonde man. "Oh, of course! Follow me, Rose." Before Rose could protest (which Rose had given up much earlier in the night), the Lady was dragging her to the solitary man in the corner. "Sir Alan! How wonderful to see you could come!"

The man reverted his attention on Lady Fairaway and smiled. He was a young man, older than Rose but much younger than the Fairaways, with a bit of stubble around his chin. But it was his eyes that Rose found to be most peculiar. They were blue, smoldering in a cool way. Rose felt uneasy staring at them to long.

"Sir Alan, I'd like you to meet Miss Rose Tyler. Rose, may introduce Sir Alan Lockeby." Lady Fairaway smiled, eager to see the reaction the two guests would have with each other.

Sir Alan stared at Rose, almost in disbelief, making Rose feel even more unnerved than before. To avoid his gaze, she curtseyed, set on staring at the floor. "Nice to meet you, Sir Alan," she said quietly.

"Yes, and you, Miss Tyler." He blinked away his state of confusion and took her hand. At their touch, Rose felt a surge of Little Alien Baby energy shoot up her spine. She and Sir Alan broke their contact immediately.

Lady Fairaway was oblivious to their discomfort. "Sir Alan is a scientist, like your Mr. Smith," she said to Rose, and then turned to Sir Alan. "Miss Tyler is an assistant to a good scientist friend of Lord Fairaway."

"Really?" Sir Alan raised a brow. "Good for her." He smirked at Rose. Another pulse from Little Alien Baby went through Rose's mind. She tried to ignore it, but her unborn child was awfully persistent.

Probably because the conversation wasn't as stimulating as she'd hoped, Lady Fairaway's eyes drifted around the room. She gasped. "Oh my! Queen Victoria! She came!"

"What?" Rose whirled, her attention darting to the direction of Lady's Fairaway's stare. Unfortunately, she couldn't see over the rest of the crowd, so she just had to take the Lady's word for it.

"Yes, Rose, the Queen! Oh my, you'll have to excuse me." Lady Fairaway fixed her dress and hair before leaving Rose, to make matters even more stressful and awkward, in the company of the strangely familiar/not familiar-at-all Sir Alan.

"I'm guessing you're acquainted with Her Majesty?" he said to defeat the ongoing silence that suddenly came in between them.

Rose shrugged. "Yes—no. Well, sort of." As quickly as Lady Fairaway had abandoned her, Rose felt her neck grow hot with the anxiousness that overcame her at the Queen's arrival. She had to remind her that this was twenty years before her and the Doctor's meeting with Victoria and the wolf. "Only briefly."

"Same with me. A few times before my knighting, and then after that, nothing. She's a busy lady, so I can't blame her." He sighed, as if he really _did_ blame her. Rose still felt uneasy being in his presence, but smiled nonetheless.

"So you're the assistant to a scientist?" he went on. "How profound for a young lady nowadays."

"Well, he's more of a doctor."

"Even still. Most of the women I've come across are interested in more frivolous things—but I don't like to commune with people so much. I'm only here temporarily, until I can fix this… device of mine."

"What kind of device? Maybe the Do—Mr. Smith could help. He's good with gadgets."

"Is he?" Sir Alan only looked mildly interested, giving Rose more of a reason to tip the scales back to giving him the cold shoulder. "You say he's here? I might like to meet him."

"Only if I can find him. Being here, seeking out a single person of interest—it's like a round of Where's Waldo?" Rose's eyes widened at what she just said. She cursed herself internally, ready to hear the question of what she was talking about. She was surprised when instead, she heard laughter.

"I agree. Wait—" Suddenly, as if he had the same realization, he turned to Rose, back to staring at her disbelievingly. "How do you know about Where's Waldo?"

"I could ask you the same thing," she snapped.

They looked at each other warily for a moment. Little Alien Baby was now being a royal pain with its mind link surges. Rose wished she'd brought some pain relievers with her, and she thought this especially when Sir Alan grasped her by her arm and forced her through the crowd of people. With a look of fire in his eyes, he stormed to a spiral staircase outside the ballroom. They only stopped when they were a whole floor away from the party down below.

"Who are you?" he demanded. He seized her by her shoulders, but Little Alien Baby sent an outpouring of energy at his touch. He gasped and backed away. "What the _hell_—?"

"How could you possibly feel that?" Rose gasped. Sir Alan didn't answer. Violently, she grabbed him by his ear. "Who are you? _What_ are you?"

Sir Alan—or whoever he was—clutched her wrist, his nails digging deep into her flesh.

"I think I could ask you the same thing," he growled. "Now I am going to be calm, but I assure that that can change if you don't answer me. Who. Are. You?"

Rose didn't see any point in arguing or fighting. She wasn't going to let herself or Little Alien Baby get hurt, whether telling him the truth was the right choice or not. "I—"

"Rose! Where've you been? I think someone's about to do a trapeze act out there, they're so tipsy, and I got two compliments on my cane, so you can show that to your snippy comments and…" Breathing a sigh of relief when the Doctor ran up beside her, his eyes fell on Sir Alan and burned. Rose let go of Sir Alan's ear at the same time Sir Alan let go of her wrist. Protectively, the Doctor took a step in front of her, but made no advance to beat the man with his can like Rose thought he might. He and Sir Alan blinked at each other, unsure of the person standing in front of them.

"Who are you?" they asked at the same time, only to frown at their act of unison.

Sir Alan narrowed his eyes. "Doctor?" he whispered, shocked and horrified all at the same time.

"Doc—Mr. Smith," Rose stammered, "this is Sir Alan Lockeby. Sir Alan, meet the elusive Mr. Smith."

"I don't know what he's told you, Rose, but that's not Sir Alan anything," the Doctor told her stonily. "Rose Tyler, I'd like to introduce to you the Master, the only other living Time Lord in existence."

If Rose had been holding a glass of anything (it never occurred to her that she never got her water), she was positive that it would have shattered to the floor. Little Alien Baby was freaking out in her head, making her stomach move in somersaults. She gaped at the man formerly known as Sir Alan. Under his chilling gaze and the heat of the unbelievable moment, Rose did two things:

First, she said, "_That_ is _bull_."

Then she ran to the nearest bathroom.

**DUDE!!!! Vulcan's an actual planet! I mean, it actually wasn't:**

***In (my) summary, this French guy discovered this thing near Mercury, and some other scientists claimed to have seen what he was talking about or something like it by the sun, but a lot of people could never find the planet. Einstein's theory of relativity eventually came into play and disproved that Vulcan ever existed.**

**So technically, it doesn't exist. But maybe it does, in our hearts. Or maybe just _Star Trek_. Who knows?**

**I do. And by "know" I mean that I _know_ that I am so not a scientist. Or a historian.**


	6. A New Companion

**This one took longer, I know! I've been freakishly busy this past week, slaving over things that need to be slaved over and conquering world hunger. The usual. But anyway, it's here now! The Master has returned! The cliffhanger shall no longer hang from cliffs. We are cliff-less in this place.**

**I want to thank everyone for their support once more, especially now. I seriously thought the last chapter was going to be a flop, but apparently, everyone loved it! Who would have thought? Not me, certainly.**

**I don't own _Doctor Who_.**

**I'd also like to dedicate this chapter to my mom, for helping me clean certain parts of the story up, even while she felt like total crap on toast, and supporting me even when I have doubts about anything (which is often). Mother, I love you and you rock. 3**

**So here it is, the chapter you've all been waiting for. Have fun reading, and here's a special message: Give a hoot! Don't pollute!**

When Rose had finished throwing up, she could only stand over the sink, much like she had months before when she first discovered she was carrying Little Alien Baby.

Like that moment, this was also life changing.

_He's not alone. He has a brother, or a brother-like person… right? Is this 'Master' person his brother? Is that what they would call it on Gallifrey, best friends are brothers, just like girls are girlfriends or something? And what is wrong with those Time Lords? They can't just pick a normal name? I mean, come on! The Master? That's asking—no, begging—for torture. Oh, no, will Little Alien Baby be named something dumb like that, too? No, it won't. I will _not_ let that happen. Which reminds me, we need to start narrowing down—_

A knock interrupted her thought process. She wiped off her mouth and opened the door to find the Doctor with a raised fist, ready to knock again, and the Master behind him, picking at his teeth.

"_When_ did I eat _that_?" he asked aloud, flicking away whatever had gotten caught between his gums.

Rose settled herself against the doorframe; one arm crossed over her chest and her other hand resting on her stomach. She looked at the Doctor stonily.

"I'm waiting."

"I swear, I didn't know," he began explaining in a rush. "I thought they were all dead. If I had known, I would have told you. You have to believe that."

Rose said nothing. A part of her felt betrayed, but she knew it wasn't the Doctor's fault, and he certainly wasn't lying to her. Why would he make himself so lonely if he knew he really had no reason to be lonely at all? To impress her? No, that was stupid. He would never do that. Biting down on her bottom lip, she glanced around the hall and then grabbed the Doctor and Sir Alan—the Master—whoever he was—by their sleeves.

"Let's not cause a scene. In here." She pulled them into the lavatory, firmly shutting the door when she made sure that no one had seen them.

"Oh, right, 'cause it's really discreet when three people go into a bathroom and act all suspicious about it," the Master said wryly.

"No one asked you," the Doctor snapped. "But perhaps we should start. How did you get here?"

"What? No, 'Hi! How's it going? You catch the football last night?' Well, no, I didn't, because there's no television here. Absolute _nightmare_."

"Master!"

"Oh, you were always so snippy! It's moments like these that remind me why—"

"Mate, answer the question or I will hit you," Rose threatened blankly.

The Master smirked. "And _that's_ how you get things done." He cracked his knuckles and leaned up against the wall. "I crashed here a few months ago. My ship hasn't been in the best of conditions since then. I've tried to fix it the best I could, but as you can see, this particular century isn't that big on electrical wirings or crystals from the planet Narmen that provide helpful power sources or, well, space ships altogether. I gave myself an identity and these numbskulls bought it. The end."

"What kind of ship?" inquired the Doctor. "Where'd you get it? How'd it crash?"

"Irrelevant, not telling you, and it crashed in the usual way. You know, flying metal thing go boom? You're familiar with the concept, Doctor. But enough about _me_, let's talk about _you_. And when I say 'you', I mean you and your blonde eye candy." He turned his narrowed, mocking eyes onto Rose. "You're freaky. I can tell."

Rose blinked at the Doctor. "He called me freaky."

"I know. I heard."

"Can't you hit him with your cane?"

"Give me a minute. I'm working up the energy."

The Master sighed rather loudly and dramatically. "Oh, you and your third degree. It's so big, it ought to be considered a fourth degree. Much like your hair—how did you get it to stick up like that?"

Another knock came from the other side of the oak door, but before anyone could say that the room was currently occupied, the person—an elderly man— opened the door. He noticed the three people already in the room and blinked.

"Hello!" greeted the Master and the Doctor in unison, causing them to frown and cast each other glares.

"We'll just go," Rose decided. She tugged on the two Time Lords' sleeves again and dragged them out of the bathroom and toward the exit of the house.

"Leaving already?" Lord Fairaway popped up out of nowhere, placing a hand on the Doctor's shoulder to stop his, Rose's, and the Master's departure. Beside him, just as abruptly as he'd come about, the lady of the house appeared. She looked from the Master—Sir Alan—to Rose with mild puzzlement.

"You only just got here, my dear," she said to Rose in such a sweet way, and Rose was almost determined to stay.

"We're so sorry, but we really have to go. Science business. Keep trudging to discover, right Lord Fairaway?" said the Doctor with a wink.

"Lovely party, though," said Rose.

"Indeed," agreed the Master. "Top notch crab puffs."

"Well, come back and visit," Lord Fairaway said. "You're always welcome."

Lady Fairaway nodded. They group bid their farewells, and as the men from Gallifrey and the human girl walked out the door, Lady Fairaway took Rose by the arm.

"Take care, dear, and watch out for your doctor. All that logic, it's enough to drive a man insane."

Rose smiled softly, because she couldn't have agreed more.

* * *

The residence of the Master's spacecraft was an old, broken down sawmill in a nearby forest. The green, surprisingly small spaceship itself was almost as broken down as the sawmill. Parts of it were splayed across the floor, some were hanging off of the hinges of the craft; it looked like a gigantic puzzle that the Master had tried everything to figure out, but his efforts were useless. Even in the dark shadows, he looked downcast and disgruntled at his failed work.

The Doctor put on his glasses and examined a piece of the puzzle with the sonic screwdriver. A sudden thought popped into Rose's head, where Little Alien Baby had a sonic screwdriver for itself. She giggled before she could stop herself. The Doctor and the Master turned to her.

She covered her laugh with a cough. "So, is this all?"

"Probably a piece of crap compared to the luxuries of your lovely Tardis," remarked the Master. "In all honesty, though, I can't say you're wrong. It _is_ a piece of crap."

"Narmen space officials let you have one of their spacecrafts?" said the Doctor skeptically. "They don't even let their own planet's inhabitants take rides on horse hybrids, but they let _you_ have one of their ships?"

The Master shrugged nonchalantly. "What can I say? I have a very convincing face."

At this, the Doctor looked even more skeptical.

"I can't imagine being stranded, in this time, of all centuries," Rose mused. "Must have been torture."

"You can call me a maverick, if you want. It's all right."

"My goodness, you've gotten cocky," muttered the Doctor.

"Well, apparently, arrogance is something you need when you have a big hunk of junk like this." The Master kicked the side of the pod-ship as he spoke. Something inside crashed. He cringed. "Modesty comes with nice ships with kitchens and libraries and swimming pools."

Rose's attention snapped to the Doctor. "We have a swimming pool?"

"Not anymore, or not that you can swim in, anyway." The Doctor shook his head. "I've tried to get rid of the semi-enormous giant squid, but nothing worked, and I never liked how it would look at me. All cephalopod-like and what not. It's unnerving."

"Right… but back to _me _and _my_ problems." The Master grabbed the Doctor's cane and begun to swing it around over his head, watching gravity do its dirty work and drop it back down. "What about my ship, eh? You're the Doctor, so give it to me straight. Am I stranded or is there hope for this Master to rule the stars once again?"

The Doctor got to his feet. "Unfortunately, your ship is beyond dead. In fact, if it was any deader, it would be, erm…" He looked to Rose for help.

"Something really, really, _really_ dead," she supplied.

"Exactly. But, unfortunately minus the 'Un-', the Tardis is equipped with a few parts that would get you out of your rut and to a time that's at least functional for you. If you want them, of course."

The Master scoffed, "You think I _like_ being in this dolt-filled century? No one here knows what a corn dog is! Of course I want them!"

"You have to say please," teased Rose.

"Don't start with me, Blondie."

"You're a blonde too, smartass."

"And you're still freaky. So button it."

The Doctor took Rose by the arm and pulled her to the corner to speak in private. "I need to get the parts for the ship. They're scattered around the Tardis, but I know where they are."

"Great! I'll help."

"No, you'll stay here."

Rose's face fell. "Doctor, you can't! I barely know him!"

"He's not going to do anything now that he knows that you're just some freaky chick who's associated with me."

"Oh, _thanks_."

"I didn't mean it like that," he mumbled, slapping a hand to his forehead. He sighed. "I can't trust him alone."

"Is that supposed to comfort me? Is that supposed to comfort,"—she glanced at the Master to make sure he was out of earshot—"L. A. B.?"

"Rose, _please_! He won't hurt you."

"And how do you figure that?"

"Because I know why you're freaky," the Master intervened, catching Rose off-guard. Using his cold stare, the Master took a few steps towards her. The footsteps chilled her bones. He looked down at her stomach and then smirked at the Doctor. "It really has been a while, hasn't it?"

The Doctor ignored him. He planted a soft kiss to Rose's forehead, continuing to ignore the Master's cringing from the side, and then whispered, "I'll be back with the Tardis."

"You better, or else I'll find some way to anonymously tell Queen Victoria that you're here."

"Twenty years before our banishment, Rose. Remember?" He walked to the door with the word "Smug" plastered on his face. "Maybe you are a true blonde."

She rolled her eyes. "You're just jealous because I have great hair color and you're still not ginger."

"Hitting home, Rose! That hurts." He winked, and then he slipped out of the sawmill. Rose stood in her spot, trying not to meet the eyes of the Master, who was staring her down with the intention of making her look at him. In the end, he won.

"Stop," she said.

"Stop what?" he replied, mocking her.

"Stop… _that_. That thing where you look at me and you think, 'Oh, she's just a human. I'm so much better than her.' _That_ kind of look. I've gotten it enough to know what it's like."

"By sticking with the Doctor, you undoubtedly will be getting it a lot more." He sat on the creaking floor that was probably rotting too, and leaned back on the broken spaceship. Rose wished that she didn't have to sit so badly, otherwise she would have kept to standing. At least the Master wasn't watching her so creepily anymore.

At first, the silence was a relief. Rose didn't know what to make of the Master, for she was still in shock, and she was certain that underneath his sarcasm, he didn't know what to make of her. How could a Time Lord still be around? She knew the Time War. No survivors, except for the Doctor, which she then supposed made the statement of no survivors invalid, thus bringing an explanation to the Master's existence. One part of her wanted to him to tell her about Gallifrey, to answer the questions the Doctor never answered. Another part of her wanted to strangle the man supposedly snoozing before her, because he left the Doctor and made him think that he was all alone.

But most of all, she wanted to know one thing above all else.

"How did you survive?" she asked. She knew he wasn't sleeping.

"So you know about the Time War," he said without opening his eyes. "Such a big piece of knowledge for a human."

"So what?" she snapped. "What's wrong with humans? Are you against us because we're not as developed as the Time Lords? Or is it because we're just not as big-headed as you? The Time Lords were great, I'm sure, but I bet they didn't come without their own flaws as well!"

"Lily—" he started.

"Just because you've been stranded here and you have a tank full of pent-up aggression towards the universe and the Doctor doesn't mean you have the right to criticize a race you honestly know _nothing_ about! And if you want to rant about us, I would advise you to rant to someone whose hormones aren't skyrocketing right now, all right?! _And my name is Rose_!!!"

The Master blinked at her, speechless. She couldn't find her voice either. She breathed deeply and scooted over to sit next to the Master against the cold, metal ship. She wrapped her shawl around her arms to keep warm.

"I was resurrected by the Time Lords," he eventually began, a little slowly, for fear of setting her off again, "to battle in the Time War. I was the ultimate warrior."

"What happened? The Doctor said that the whole planet blew up."

He visibly flinched, but explained in simple words. "I ran. A bit like the Doctor, in fact."

"The Doctor didn't run."

"Those who didn't run, Miss Tyler, are no longer living. The Doctor ran. Mind you, he also made an entire planet go _ka-boom!_ But he still ran nonetheless."

Despite the fact that her opinion of him was wavering, she continued with her inquisition. "So why didn't you contact the Doctor at all? He was lonely. He needed someone."

"By the looks of it, he seems to have found someone."

Rose blushed, but said, "I meant someone like him. I'm no Time Lady."

"Neither am I."

The laugh that emitted from her throat couldn't have been restrained if she had tried. She hadn't heard much about the Master since that fateful day when she met the Doctor, but no matter the Time Lords' past (which was more like a vague story to her), it was amusing how alike they were, even if that amusement was only going to be apparent to her.

"So, can it be my turn to ask the questions?" He didn't wait for a green light to say, "Care to explain the—as the Earth saying goes—'bun in the oven'?"

"It's not rocket science. It was an accident. A good accident." She smiled. "You were never going to do anything to me. You knew about the baby ever since the Doctor came and introduced us."

"Mind links are fun," he commented pleasantly. "I could sense another presence even before Lady Fairaway tried to set us up. I figured it was the Doctor when he first came into the scene, but then in the bathroom, I figured it out." He leaned over. "I'm clever, you see."

"Is it because I'm the Doctor's companion and you have a sudden affection for me?"

He laughed, and unlike her, he didn't even try to cover it up. "I see why the Doctor likes you."

"Flattery won't get you anywhere."

"I don't flatter, Tulip. And for the record,"—his eyes met hers, and she didn't see a trace of their coldness at all—"I miss my planet, too. If Gallifrey has to live through a half-human crossbreed, then I can't really complain."

Rose nodded, and before she could stop herself, she added with bursting pride, "I can sense the baby, you know. We have a mind link of our own."

"Really?" he gasped, pretending to be giddily interested. "Does it tell you what color it wants its nails painted after it's born?"

Rose pursed her lips. "And just when I was starting to like you."

"Sorry, love. It's just what I do."

A whirring from outside kept them from speaking any further. The Master shot up from his spot and skipped to the entrance of the mill while Rose, who—now that she was sitting—did not want to stand, and waited until the two Time Lords came back. She drummed the backs of her knuckles against the ship behind her to a beat she didn't even know. What was going to happen now that the Master had arrived? Could the Doctor really let him go? She still wasn't sure she liked the Master—regardless of his quite visible… charm? No, it was more of a partially amusing cynicism—but there were things more important than whether she _liked_ the other Time Lord. Maybe being pregnant made her wiser, or maybe being pregnant with a half-Time Lord child made her wiser, or maybe she had always been wise but had never discovered said wise-ness until now, but thinking back on the moment when she first found out Sir Alan's true identity, she could see the tiny glimmer of hope in the Doctor's eyes.

Who was she to deny that, after everything that had happened between the two of them and Little Alien Baby? For a final confirmation, she patted her stomach. Little Alien Baby gave her a light ripple of energy.

"Okay," she whispered. "Let's see how this goes."

The Doctor and Master entered the mill, lugging with them enough random scraps of past spaceships to fill up the entire Narmen ship she sat against. They hurled the scraps onto the floor, failing to notice the similarities in their actions. Rose got up, grabbed the Doctor by the collar of his tuxedo, and pulled him outside the sawmill, to be completely sure that they would not be overheard. Snow was falling more heavily now. Not even the shawl helped warm her, not that it had done a lot of good before.

"You okay?" he asked. "Did he say anything to you?"

"Mum once had a b-boyfriend who was a film critic and sometimes, his critical instincts would g-get the better of him, even when th-there was no movie to criticize. S-snide comments are n-nothing new to me."

"I know he's not the most likable person—"

"Doctor, he needs to come with us."

The Doctor didn't speak. Snow fell between them, swirling in front of their faces, making it only slightly harder to see each other's expressions. This did not matter, however, because the Doctor's face hadn't changed since it froze—perhaps literally.

"What did he tell you, exactly?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "The thing about being a Pope? Total lie."

"You need him, D-Doctor," she told him softly. "I'm here, and I-I have no plans to d-ditch you any time soon, but h-he is you."

"The man's psycho, Rose!"

"And you are, too! In a good way!"

"How can you be psycho in a good way? Norman Bates wasn't psycho in a good way at all, and he was the titular character!"

"It could be f-fun. Like a-a sleepover."

"I'm nine hundred years old!"

"Oh, _come_ on, Doctor. You know I'm r-right. You need him and h-he needs you. You're both broken men."

"What if something happens?" he said so quietly, she almost didn't hear him. "What if it goes wrong—?"

"Doctor, rule number one i-in relationships? Always do what your pr-pregnant companion tells you."

"I've never heard that rule."

"Y-you've never had a-a pregnant companion. And b-besides, think of all the insane T-Time Lord-y things you two could c-come up with. It'd be like a _Star Trek_ convention!"

"I do love those."

"Yes, you do." She nodded very sensibly, inadvertently shaking snowflakes out of her hair.

"You're mocking me," the Doctor stated.

"Well, I did h-have to endure f-five minutes with the other half of your mixed-up b-bromance." She shivered in her shawl, trying to keep a smile on her face without her teeth chattering.

The Doctor frowned. "You're cold," he observed.

"No, n-not really. Chilled to the bone a little, but cold? N-not very."

He sighed, shaking his head at her, and slipped out of his coat. The black jacket was placed over her shoulders, warming her immediately.

"You wanna know something?" she said. "I lied. Two seconds ago. I thought I covered it up well, but no. You saw right through me. I'm really _very_ cold."

"You're many things, Rose, but an actress, you're not." He wrapped his arms around her for a hug, but she clung to him as if her life depended on it.

And if she didn't get warmer soon, she figured it would.

"Thank you," he murmured. "And you know,"—he was about to pull away from her, but she made no intention of letting him go—"you're quite lovely when your cold."

A grin broke out on her face against his shoulder. She would have blushed, but the cold may have been freezing her blood too. "You've never said that before."

"Yeah, well, I thought it, and now I have the pass to get away with it." He finally broke free of her grasp and kissed her cheek quickly. "Go inside the Tardis. We'll meet you there."

And he was out of her sight in the blink of an eye. Another blink later, Rose was too.

* * *

Five minutes after entering the Tardis, Rose had changed out of her dress and made herself a steaming cup of hot chocolate. She sat on in the console room, wrapping four different blankets around her shoulders. The hot liquid burned down her throat. It was fantastic.

The doors opened, and she instinctively flinched at the gust of wind that followed in the Master and the Doctor's wake. The Doctor closed the Tardis before she had to beg. The Master threw the final piece of the space ship from the sawmill onto the floor.

The Doctor led him in with a hand on his arm. "Rules of the house: No pushing, shoving, hitting, kicking, throwing tantrums, breaking things on purpose, trying to kill anybody, trying to take over any worlds, stealing my stuff, controlling the Tardis without my permission, and overall, acting like an arse."

"So, basically, I can't do anything."

"Exactly. Have fun." He patted the Master on the back and left the room to change clothes. He called out as he exited, "Still chilly, Rose?

She growled out, "Little Alien Baby and I are freezing, damn it! And we don't care who knows it!" Shivering in the layers, Rose shakily lifted the mug of hot chocolate to her lips and downed a gulp or two. She didn't notice the Master approach her and jumped a little in surprise when she saw him there.

"If you want a quilt, you have to get your own. You'll have to pry these from my dead hands."

"I can't kill anyone, remember?" he remarked. "Erm, this whole change of heart with your dear Doctor… is any of that _your_ doing?"

Rose settled into the warmth that crept in her toes. "The Doctor needs someone, someone who can relate to him. You may not be my first choice, but I don't know any other Time Lord, and if I did, it would be a miracle, since they're all dead. So, Sir Alan,"—she smiled at him the best she could, because he lips may have been frozen—"welcome to the Tardis."

He ruffled her hair—she wanted to snap his hand off—and smirked. "Hmm. Seems flattery did work." And he walked out of the console room, too, to go see the semi-enormous giant squid in the swimming pool. A wave of energy overcame Rose, scorching down her spine. The baby was trying to warm her. She moaned and fell onto the bench, delighted, falling in love with her child a little bit more.

* * *

Dante Ruphlanger had had quite the night. It had started out normal enough, but then came the Great Blue Box from the Air. It had just materialized right in front of him! Surely, he had thought, his eyes were playing tricks on him, but he doubted this when a man came out of the Great Box, clad in such fanciful garments that Dante hadn't worn since he went bankrupt three months ago. As soon as the man came out of the Great Box, Dante had bolted out of his usual alley to go tell everyone and anyone what he'd just witnessed.

Unfortunately, no one believed him. They all thought he had been imagining things, and maybe he was. How else could something like that appear before his eyes? The rest of the night, he avoided the alley and the Great Box, just in case he hadn't been imagining things. So, he decided to go down to the old sawmill, where he liked to think and listen to the wind howl against the near-broken door.

That's when he saw it. The Great Box.

It stood just outside the mill, collecting heavy snow. Dante couldn't believe it. He stepped up to the box warily, for such a wicked thing could probably kill him if he touched it, and he ogled the blue thing in the hopes that the next time he blinked, it would go away.

But of course, it didn't, and he didn't figure that that reason had anything to do with the fact that he wasn't blinking, thus giving it no chance to disappear.

"It's following me!" he whimpered, and he begun to back away as the Great Blue Box started to disappear back _into_ the air. A second later, it was gone.

Deciding that this was just the result of a lack of, well, anything, Dante Ruphlanger ran to fetch the little money he possessed. He needed a drink.

**Side note: The tapping Rose did against the Master's ship, the one that went to a beat she didn't even know? That was the drums, but there isn't going to be any reference to that later. I just thought it would be a nice homage.**

**And I'm not sure how out-of-character the Master is. Basically, he's just going to be this splinter in the Doctor's side, rather than a huge "I'm out to conquer the world and such... blah blah blah... I'm an evil (but lovable) lunatic who wants to kill you all!" sort of thing. Just a heads up. :)**


	7. Namesake

**Magic! The chapter appears! I really don't have much to say beforehand about this one, other than the confusing heads-up that it's kind of sort of told in a POV that switches from the Master to Rose and back. I bid you all thanks for the support and such, because I would probably die without it. (****No I wouldn't, not really, so don't put that kind of pressure of my fate on yourself. It's not healthy.) Then again, I did say the same thing about seeing _Alice In Wonderland_, and I saw that Saturday, so we'll never know if waiting another week to see that really would have been fatal to me.**

**Disclaimer: Do I own _Doctor Who_? Not by a bloody longshot.**

"What about 'Luke' if it's a boy? I've always liked that name."

"All right, but I'm also writing down 'Leia'."

"Doctor, if we have twins and we name it 'Luke' and 'Leia,' our children will be mercilessly mocked for the rest of their lives."

"Or worshipped by the nerds of the world. It's called a _silver lining_."

The Master, sick of throwing peanuts in the air to attempt to catch them in his mouth and missing, listened to the Doctor and Rose make a list of possible names for their baby. He decided to add his own input. "Isn't torturing your kids with what they'll be called half the fun of naming them?"

The Doctor looked up at him. "Do _you_ have children?"

"None that I'm aware of."

"Then any point you have to make is null and void." He turned back to Rose on the other side of the console. "Maybe we could do a random sort of naming thing. Like, go to any point in time and the first person we meet, we name Little Alien Baby after them."

Rose smiled mischievously. "If it's a girl, we _could_ call it 'Jackie'."

"Yeah, and we _could_ jump into a pit of lava, just for the heck of it."

"Doctor—"

"You know, I still have yet to meet the infamous Jackie Tyler," the Master pointed out. Beside him, Rose dipped her hand into the tin of peanuts and greedily took in a handful. She threw about half the amount into her mouth. All the while, the Master watched with distaste, but she never noticed.

_The mother of the next Time Lord. God help us all._

"Let's hope it stays that way," muttered the Doctor. "I can't imagine how an encounter between the two of you would go."

"Maybe Mum would slap him, too," said Rose.

"In that case, Master, you're welcome to the Powell Estate any time you want."

"Oh, Doctor. Doctor, Doctor, Doc. You're so _funny_," chuckled the Master wryly. "Hey, I've got a great idea! Why don't you call the kid 'Koschei'?"

"Who's the funny one now?" The Doctor retorted.

"What? 'Koschei' is a perfectly good name!"

"We're not naming the child after _you_!"

The Master grumbled, "You don't have to be so rude about it." He took a peanut out of the tin and flicked it at the Doctor. The Doctor looked as if he might kill him.

"Boys, please!" Rose exclaimed. "Master, we are not going to name the child 'Koschei.' I'm sorry."

"It's quite all right," he said politely, casting a grimace at the Doctor. "See? At least she's nice about it."

The Doctor groaned and banged his head against the console.

"What about 'Eleanor'?" suggested Rose. "Like, of Aquitaine? Shewas cool, and we could call her 'Ellie' for short. And also, have we decided that the Little Alien Baby would take my surname? I'm only assuming, because I don't know if you even have a surname."

"You know what happens when you assume," remarked the Master wisely.

"Are you five?"

"Marigold, you don't want to know how old I am."

Rose growled internally. She figured if she growled aloud, it might give the Master a reason to remark that she was a lady and not a lion, although, she probably would bite his head off following the statement.

"What about 'Napoleon?" said the Doctor.

"Oh, come on! You shoot down 'Koschei' but take a stab at _that_?" The Master scowled, stuffing a heap of peanuts into his mouth. He didn't pay attention to the fact that he dealt the action in the very same way Rose had minutes ago, but of course, even if he had noticed, he would have considered himself to be in a position where such a thing was allowed.

"There's no way I'm calling our son that," Rose stated.

"It's the name of a leader, so that could inspire him—it—to live with greatness. Or maybe 'Charlemagne'?" the Doctor went on. He balanced on the balls of his feet, swaying back and forth, grinning. "We could call him Charlie."

"Do you want our child to get beaten up?"

"He wouldn't get beaten up," said the Master. "Not while he's got a sonic laser."

"And where's he going to get a sonic laser?" asked the Doctor. The swaying ceased.

"Why, from his good ol' Uncle Master, of course."

"You aren't giving Little Alien Baby a weapon. Furthermore, who even knows if you'll be around by the time the baby's born?"

The Master glared at him and snapped, "_What_ is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing really. Just answer me this: Are you one hundred percent sure that you're not being wanted on some planet or in some time?"

"Are you calling me a criminal?"

"You're not exactly known for being the most trustworthy person! You'd make an excellent politician."

"I resent that! I resent all of that!"

"And yet, you've still not answered the question!"

"Well, let me tell you, Doctor, I am more than one hundred percent sure! I'm one hundred and fifty percent sure!"

"What about two hundred?"

"I'm three hundred percent sure!"

"Four hundred?"

The Master jumped to his feet, spilling the entire tin of peanuts onto the console floor. Rose scowled as the Tardis's newest companion shouted, "Four-fifty!"

"Six hundred? _Seven hundred_?"

"_Nine thousand and fifty_, and it's all _in your face_!"

"OI! That's ENOUGH!" Rose shouted. "I don't care how much you two want to compete for 'World's Most Epic Time Lord'; if you're going to act like total arses, I swear, Little Alien Baby is going to give me the green light to beat the crap out of you two!"

Both men shrunk back into their shells, though not without at least childishly sticking their tongues out at each other. Rose sighed. _Oh, yeah. This is a great environment to raise a child in. It's Pee-wee's bloody Playhouse_.

"Do either of you know where you're going to have the baby?" the Master asked, still sullen from being scolded.

"Oh." Rose blinked. "I hadn't thought of that."

"You can't very well give birth to a half-alien child in a normal hospital."

"No, I suppose not."

"We could have a home birth," commented the Doctor. "The Tardis is equipped."

"Can you deliver a baby though?"

"Rose, my name is 'The Doctor'."

"Really? I thought it was 'The Freak Who Never Leaves Me Alone'," said the Master.

"That's only what you call me."

Rose pondered the idea of having a child in the Tardis. "I don't know about a home birth. Not that I think you're lacking in any mad birthing skills, but I just think it'd be a little strange to have a baby in the same place I brush my teeth, you know?"

"What about your mum's flat?"

Rose nearly laughed. "Do you really want to be delivering a baby while my mother is walking around, screaming at you about whether you're legally allowed to be doing this and if you even know what you're doing?"

The Doctor stared at something far off in the distance, horrified. "Point made. Forget your mum."

"What if you had your baby on the planet Gorzola?" the Master said.

The Doctor gave him a strange look, perhaps the most civil expression he'd ever looked at his opponent with. "Gorzola's made entirely of cheese."

"Yeah, so?"

"So you want us to have a baby on a planet _made of cheese_?"

"I'm thinking outside the box."

"Is the box made of cheese, too? And what if the kid is lactose intolerant?"

The Master pouted. "Chrysanthemum, your baby daddy's mocking me."

"Honestly, Master, I think you deserve that one," giggled Rose.

"Well…" The Doctor flicked a switch on the Tardis, which had started blinking a light in a pattern of four beats at once. The blinking stopped as soon as the switch was thrown back. "We could always try Torchwood."

Rose's gasp was so loud, she wondered if it echoed throughout the whole Tardis. "Really? Could we?"

"What's Torchwood?" The Master asked.

Ignoring him, the Doctor told Rose, "Why not? I mean, we need a place that deals with aliens. We could go to another planet, but I figure you don't feel all too comfortable about a green specimen with tentacles delivering L. A. Baby."

"What's Torchwood?"

"And Jack will be there. That's a pro all in itself, right?"

"Right," beamed Rose. "Let's do it."

"What's Torchwood?"

"Great! I'll give Jack a ring; we'll stop by tomorrow."

"HEY! WHAT IS TORCHWOOD!" yelled the Master. He snatched a huge bag of crisps from underneath his seat, where he'd been keeping a stash of assorted foods so that he wouldn't have to get up, and popped open the bag, sending crisps flying everywhere. Rose shrieked and laughed, picking off the crisps that fell into her hair.

"Was that necessary?" the Doctor inquired, more exasperated than annoyed anymore.

The Master shrugged and bit loudly into a crisp. "Probably not, but it _was_ effective."

"Torchwood's this organization that specializes in aliens," Rose explained, picking the formerly flying crisps off of her stomach, which was big enough now to be used as a catcher in case any other food decided to soar into the air. "We have a friend there, Captain Jack Harkness, who runs the place."

The Doctor nodded. "We're old chums."

"Ooo, I'm jealous," the Master mentioned blankly. "Wait—you say they specialize in aliens?"

"Yes, and I know what you're thinking, and you'd better not do it."

"Why? What's he thinking?" Rose asked, but her mind was suddenly filled with an image of the Master, hunting guns and bombs and other alien technology and stashing them away for later use. The image evaporated, and while she silently thanked Little Alien Baby for supplying what she was being left out of, she snapped at the Master, "Don't even think about it!"

She would have liked for him to have been at least somewhat intimidated by her, or at least have pretended to be, but he snorted instead. "Are you trying to join our Time Lord-y club, Petunia?"

"MY NAME IS ROSE!"

"Yes, I understood that by your apparent thorns."

She nearly slapped him, but he rolled off of the bench before her hand collided with his face.

"I have an idea about the name of the Halfling," he proposed, standing and acting as if the pregnant flower near him didn't want to kill him. "How about a game?"

"Uh-oh," said the Doctor.

"It's a simple game, where we all draw straws."

"Danger, Will Robinson."

"Whoever gets the largest straw wins."

"You want us to pick a name for our baby, the only Time Lord-human child in existence, by drawing straws?" Rose cried. "Are you _mental_?"

"I feel I get as much say in this decision as the two of you, and since neither of you seem keen on letting me help, it's my duty for England, or at least as a man with an English accent, to make myself involved, whether you crab cakes like it or not."

"Brilliant reasoning, mate," said the Doctor sarcastically.

"At least he's making an effort," Rose sighed.

The Doctor grimaced to himself. His next words were clearly against his better judgment. "All right. We'll draw straws. But you can't cheat, and you can't name it after yourself."

"And if you win, you can only name it if it's a girl," Rose added. "I just thought of a perfect name for if it's a boy."

"And what would that be?"

"'Peter,'" she said. "If it's a boy, it has to be 'Peter'."

The Doctor smiled. "I think that's perfect." They locked eyes, neither believing what was happening. Not only were they having a baby, but it was being named. The fact that they almost had an identity for the Little Alien Baby brought things back down to Earth, although they were nowhere near the planet in actuality.

"Okay, I don't know what kind of weirdo moment you two are having, but I cross my heart," the Master said with a grin. For effect, he made an X over the side of his chest.

Rose tore her eyes away from the Doctor's, having a hard time keeping a blush from rising into her cheeks. "What about your other heart?" she asked.

"That one's iffy. We'll see." He sprang off of the bench, sending the crisps flying too.

"That's just wasting food!" Rose yelled, but he had already dashed out of the room. She stared sadly at the bag of crisps thrown across the floor. "You'd better be nicer with the chips!"

"What did we just agree to?" the Doctor wondered aloud. He gasped, the realization that the Master would be naming their child overcoming him, and doubled over like he was dying. "_What_ have we done?!"

"You're being a bit dramatic. Maybe it won't be so bad." Rose attempted to think optimistically, but even the spurts of energy in her head from the Little Alien Baby seemed to be vaguely anxious.

_What happened to the one-way decision of not letting anyone name the baby something horrific?!_ she screamed at herself. _The man doesn't even know your own name!_

"Whoever has the largest straw wins," called the Master. He bounced back into the console room, three straws in hand. He put them all in his fist, leveling their height, and finally, when he knew they were perfect, held them out to the Doctor and Rose. Reluctantly, they each took one.

They looked down at the straws in their hands.

The Master grinned. "I guess I need a baby book of names."

The Doctor looked like he was going to kill him, but just as he reached out, the Master stepped away and ran, far away from the pregnant human and the homicidal Time Lord. "Don't you have a captain to phone?" he called, silently thanking whatever god he could for the Tardis being so big and having so many places to hide, for what could probably be for days and days and days and days…

He was going to need a lot more peanuts.

_Peanut. Maybe that's a good name…_


	8. Torchwood's School of Love

**ARGHH!!!! I BARELY HAVE TIME TO POST THIS OMG!!!! IT'S THE APOCOLPSYE!!!!**

**Not really. Don't freak out.**

**But I really am in a rush. I have to pull a Speed Racer and post this uber-fast or else... well, I dunno. Dinner's ready in like, now minutes, and I'm going to be killed if I don't get off. Cheers to the peeps and their major support, even as they wait on my ever-lasting wait-until-the-last-minute syndorme. It's not a fatal disease, but still just as irritating.**

**Disclaimer: Dude, plz. I don't own _Doctor Who_.**

Upon hearing that the Doctor and Rose would be visiting the profound institute known as Torchwood, Jack had been utterly thrilled, or so it sounded on the phone. Upon hearing that she was with child, he'd been ecstatic. Rose spotted him waiting at the heart of the rift in Cardiff, the very same place he had once stood with her, the Doctor, and Mickey, back before the Doctor had regenerated and certainly before she was planning (or technically, not planning) on being a mother. Jack looked no different than how they had left him, and maybe he was even a bit happier than she remembered.

Then, for some reason, she began to wonder how many children he had fathered in the past.

Knowing Jack, this was not an inappropriate thing to question.

"Holy crap, Rose!" he shouted when he saw the trio of the Tardis approaching. "You're huge!"

"You really know how to treat a woman, don't you, Jack?" Rose shouted back but despite her sarcasm, she couldn't have been more pleased to see her old friend again. Even with her love for the Doctor, she could not deny the light swoon she felt from seeing the captain. Jack ran over to greet the three of them, excitedly patting the bulging baby bump.

"She likes you," Rose told him happily. The recent spurts of vitality from the pregnancy—_Huzzah for the second trimester!_—were a blessing in disguise of the slightly depressing fact that she could no longer see her feet. So far, she'd managed to draw a design for the baby room, read two novels of thick proportions, learn how to bake three cakes without the existence of fire (to her and the Doctor's surprise, the Master wasn't just called 'The Master' because of his aspirations for universal domination), and go on a shopping trip with her mother in London.

She had been awake for a while.

"All of that, and yet, you still can't park the Tardis correctly?" the Doctor had said just before landing in Cardiff.

"Don't hate the player, Doctor. In four months time, parking the Tardis will be pie compared to what _I will have to go through_."

"Oh, you can't wait to hate me, can you?"

She giggled, dancing around the console. "I'm only dreaming of it."

"And this must be the Master," Jack said, shaking the other Time Lord's hand. He studied the Master carefully, a sly grin on his face. "_Really_ nice to meet you."

"Yeah, you too. I think." He flashed him a nervous smile.

"Don't worry, he doesn't bite," remarked the Doctor.

Jack smirked. "Not much, anyway."

The Master shrank behind the Doctor, who—along with Rose—had to keep from falling over with laughter at the poor Master's expense.

"We missed you _so_, so much," the Doctor chuckled to Jack as they were led to the invisible entrance to Torchwood, and Jack replied with a wink.

"Hey, why is it that when he says you look huge, you laugh it off, but when the Doctor or I say that you look huge, you slap us in the face?" whispered the Master.

"Because I take way more pleasure in hitting you than anything else." Clinging to his arm, Rose batted her eyelashes at him. As much as he may have wanted to scowl and shove her away, there was no denying that the Master's presence had made both Rose and the Doctor a little more cynical.

It was going to be a fun day, no matter what the Master would think.

* * *

After Owen had given Rose a checkup to make sure everything with the baby was okay, they, the Time Lords, and the other members of Torchwood gathered into a small room that reminded Rose slightly of a safe, just by the metal walls and high-tech equipment spread out before her eyes. She wondered how long it would take for the Master to have a heart attack.

"This may be the best tea I've ever had." Rose continued to praise Ianto's mad tea preparing skills.

"Oh, stop," Ianto said, blushing. "It's nothing."

"No, really! I thought my mum made good tea, but I think you finally beat her out. Think of the tea-ful explosion that'd occur if you swapped secrets. You two should meet."

"Rose, we like these people," said the Doctor. "Let's not send them to their deaths."

"Is your friend okay over there?" asked Toshiko, motioning to the Master. For the past fifteen minutes, he'd been fawning over a set of laser guns stacked on the wall. Every few seconds, he'd murmur the word, "Beautiful."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Erm… more or less. No different than usual."

"I'm sure it was a huge mistake bringing him here, though," said Rose.

"Oh yeah. _Gigantic_ mistake. We'll pay for it later. Hey, Master!"

The Master, barely caring, remained staring at the allegedly beautiful wall of weaponry. He raised a hand to let them all know that he was at least acknowledging them.

"Why don't you come over and surprise us all by acting civil?" the Doctor suggested.

"No, thanks! I'm good."

"Maybe I'm asking a really stupid question," Jack started, "but may I inquire why he's called 'The Master'?" He raised an eyebrow, grinning roguishly from ear to ear.

Rose snickered into her teacup. "You're too kinky for your own good, Jack."

"At least you don't have to work with him," Gwen commented. Jack stuck his tongue out at her, and she returned the favor wholeheartedly. "Oh, Rose, I nearly forgot! Tosh and I got you a couple of things before you came, for the baby."

"God bless you lot. The Doctor and I have no idea what we're doing when we shop for Little Alien Baby—and by 'The Doctor and I', I just mean…" She pointed conspicuously at the resident alien.

_Mind you, I don't actually know how human Jack is, so the Doctor and Master might not be the only ones from out of this world._

"She's just mad because I didn't want to get the crib she wanted to get," the Doctor said.

"You were completely unreasonable! Especially compared to what you wanted, which was one that _flew_, which we wouldn't have gotten if Hell froze over on wheels."

"Why would Hell freeze over on wheels?" asked Owen.

"Why _wouldn't_ Hell freeze over on wheel?" she replied, implying that the answer was entirely obvious. Slowly, she got to her feet. "Shall we, ladies?" She, with Gwen and Tosh by her side, left the boys to themselves. Once the door was shut, Jack, Ianto, and Owen burst out laughing.

"What's so hilarious?" inquired the Doctor suspiciously.

"Everything!" Jack spluttered, leaning against the table for support, because he would surely double over and possibly pass out if he didn't. "Doctor, Rose is having your kid! That's the funniest damn thing in the galaxy."

"From what we've heard," Ianto explained, "you are not the first person that comes to mind when it comes to the word 'commitment'."

"And you just made the biggest commitment you could ever make, Sparky," chuckled Owen. "Congrats."

"You make it sound like I don't want this," the Doctor scowled.

"Don't you?" challenged Jack. "Ianto's right, you don't even like to decide what kind of toothpaste to use. You switch every other day."

The Doctor frowned. "How could you possibly know that?"

"I was young when I first came aboard the Tardis, Doctor. Young and curious and apparently into guys with funny ears."

"Just guys with funny ears?" teased Ianto.

"Well, at the time, it was either that or the pink squid we met in that bar on that planet… I can't remember it's name—the planet, I mean. Come to think of it, I can't remember the squid's name either, but he bought me a drink, so that earned him points."

"Do you have a point, Captain Horniness?" said the Doctor.

"Clever, Doctor. Very clever, but sadly, unoriginal. And anyway, I do have a point." He leaned over the Doctor, staring him square in the eye, no trace of a joke on his face. "You are going to be a dad. Rose is going to be the child's mother. You have to let her know that you're in this completely, no backing out or taking time off to traverse around the galaxy or—"

"I love her, Jack. I'm in love with Rose Tyler, and you know that I'm not the type of person to run away from something like _this_. I've been a father before."

Jack blinked, surprised. "Does she know that?"

"She has a vague idea, but knows how the story ends."

"I meant about you loving her."

"Oh. Well, yes, I've told her."

"Have you proposed to her yet?" questioned Owen, but before the Doctor could even muster the breath to answer, the Master intervened, returning from his promised land of destruction.

"He hasn't even managed to ask her what she wants for Christmas, let alone, ask her to marry him," he snapped wryly, pulling up a seat.

The Doctor faced them all defiantly. What did they know about his love life?

_Although you don't know much about your own love life either_, the voice inside his head told him, and he used the other voice in his head (the one that could be controlled more properly) to tell the first voice to shut up.

"I have too asked her to marry me!" he exclaimed, folding his arms over his chest.

The Master's jaw dropped. "What? When was this? Where was I when this matter occurred?"

"I imagine running from the authorities, regardless of whatever you deny or continue to deny."

"And Rose said no?" Jack looked even more surprised than before.

That was when the defiance the Doctor's stature held decided to betray him and fade off into the sunset. He didn't meet any of their eyes when he mumbled, "Well, I never actually got the chance to ask her."

Although no actual clarification was being performed, Ianto still tried to clarify on his own. "So you asked her to marry you, but you didn't ask her to marry you?"

"Exactly."

"I'm lost," Owen stated.

"To put it simply, then, I _attempted_ to ask her."

"Why didn't you dare to instead of taking the sissy route?" said the Master.

"Because the eggs caught fire and she bloody up and left me to put them out."

"Is that why you refuse to eat scrambled eggs anymore?"

"If I'm to ask her again—"

"You mean _attempt_." The Master smirked.

The Doctor ignored him, yet again. "—then I don't want any competition."

"From scrambled eggs," said Jack.

"Yes."

"You don't want competition from _scrambled eggs_."

"Yes."

Jack blinked. "Do you realize what you're saying? We're talking about a breakfast food that has no life of its own and cannot in any way prevent you from proposing to the mother of your child."

"It can and it will if Rose is cooking! And I never said it was the most brilliant strategy I've ever come up with."

The Master nodded. "He's right, though. She'd set the toaster on fire if we let her near it."

The Doctor smiled at this, because she had set the toaster on fire once. _What a fun afternoon, at least when I wasn't almost being burned to death. My head in flames was not a high point_. But he recalled how Rose had cared for him after a couple of centimeters of hair had singed on his head, and how later, she'd gone to the trouble of buying him a new toaster (because she'd first tried to fix it and that nearly wound up as bad as when the first one caught flame). The smile on her face still made his two hearts pound.

Owen slapped a hand to the Doctor's shoulder. "Mate, from one doctor to another, it sounds like you could use a bit of help. Lucky for you, I am a man who knows women quite well, and I would be honored to help you out of this rut of attempting."

"As would we, although I'm slightly more of a man's man myself," Jack said, wrapping an arm around Ianto's shoulder and, at the same time, glancing pleasantly at the Master, who caught this gaze and pushed himself further away from him.

"I could use all the help I can get. What did you have in mind?" The Doctor huddled in with the rest of them, the think tank for a man in desperate need, perhaps completely unaware that the previous conversation had been eavesdropped on by three giggling women in the next room.

"You'd think that geniuses like them would check to see if the door was shut all the way before diving into such a dire conversation," Gwen remarked, returning with Toshiko and Rose to Tosh's computer area.

"Geniuses or not, they're still men," Tosh said.

"I feel sort of bad about ruining the Doctor's first proposal," Rose admitted, though she didn't feel badly enough to wipe the beaming smile off of her face. "But it would have been bad to set the Tardis on fire, right?"

"Right. And anyway, fire plus Tardis would probably equal in a belated proposal until the ship was fixed up nice and pretty again."

Gwen glanced back at the room where the Doctor and his recruits were planning. "I don't like them in there all at once. It's unnerving."

"Especially with the Master in there as well," said Rose. "They could be planning an assassination, for all we know."

"But they're not. They're planning _your_ marriage proposal." Tosh nodded wisely. "The Doctor is going to get down on one knee, but you can control when and where he does. You have the upper hand, my dear."

"Use your powers for good," Gwen said.

Rose bit down on her bottom lip, contemplating her new position. She could tell already that time in the Tardis was going to be more intriguing than she could have ever imagined.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, Jack, Ianto, Owen, the Master, and the Doctor emerged discreetly (meaning, not discreetly—the Master even tripped over a cable and brought Ianto down with him) from their fortress of temporary solitude. Rose, Gwen, and Tosh kept in close quarters, giggling uncontrollably and covering it up quite badly as they and the boys left the confinements of the Torchwood building. It never dawned on them that, for a roomful of people so accustomed to dealing with aliens and life-threatening/planet-threatening situations, none of them was at all very subtle.

"Well, we should probably get going," the Doctor spoke, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Lots of things to do, people to see."

"People to do?" Jack asked brightly, looking over at the Master.

"In your dreams," he scoffed.

"Other than the regular checkup—which I haven't a clue about, since 'regular' in the Tardis doesn't exist—I guess we'll at least be seeing you on March 11th, then." Owen gave a hug to Rose and shook hands with the Doctor. The girls embraced each other fondly, still giggling to each other, and Jack and Ianto lifted the Doctor off of his feet. If the world were to end in the next minute, its rescue would have to be put on hold, because its rescuers were busy giving one another a proper sendoff.

And then there was the Master, who would most likely be the reason for the world ending in the first place.

"Oh, Carnation," the Master cleared his throat, his acting skills less than satisfactory, "you seem to have an untied shoelace."

"Let me get that," the Doctor suggested, and before Rose could say anything in response, he was down on one knee, tying her shoelace. She blushed furiously and was positive that everyone saw.

"Uh, Doctor?" she breathed.

"Hold on, Rose. Untied shoelaces are a worldwide epidemic. They must be stopped." After making a perfect bow (or so she assumed; she couldn't see her feet anymore), the Doctor finally looked up, pleased with his work. "Now then, Rose." He reached into his pocket for something…

Rose stood on the spot, an ice cube.

… He opened his hand…

She gasped.

In his palm was a rag.

She blinked as he begun to polish her shoe.

"What are you doing?" she asked in a quivering voice.

"Well, shining your shoes, obviously," he answered.

"Doctor, I'm wearing sneakers."

He stopped polishing. "Oh. So you are." With a shrug, he rose from one knee. "Oh well. Now you have very shiny sneakers."

Rose smiled weakly. _So it's going to be like _that_, is it? _Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gwen slap a hand to her forehead.

They all bid their farewells and Rose and her Time Lords returned to the comforts of the Tardis. Rose, suddenly craving a candy bar, entered the kitchen and sat at the table with the chocolate in her hands, thinking over how this whole proposal nonsense was going to be and how she could possibly concentrate on anything else with that in mind. Gwen and Tosh told her that she could control when the Doctor would pop the question, but how was she supposed to manage that _and_ prepare herself for the arrival of her child? She took a large bite out of the candy bar and continued her worries, not realizing that all the while, the Doctor was at the console, thinking about how he was going to keep almost-proposing to her until he finally asked her for real.

Because unbeknownst to Rose and the women of Torchwood, he and the men had known all too well that the door had been left open.

**Must leave now. Must go before the stampede.**

**By the way, the signifigance to March 11th, even though that was a few days ago, is that one of my best friends had her baby on that day (I'm assuming, 'cause I only found out Sunday and I haven't talked to her yet). So it's an homage. Congrats to mother and baby!!! I lurve you to the end of time.**

**Okay, now I really have to go. TTFN.**


	9. Who's Asking Who?

**It figures that the day I went to upload this is the same day that the computer wouldn't turn on.**

**Oh well. It's fixed now (though I don't know how; I suspect Technical Engineering Pixies are at work) and I've uploaded the next chapter. (Obviously.)**

**I thousand and three thanks to everyone for their support. I'm very tired, so I must go pass out now.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who_. Never have, probably never... (*has fallen asleep on keyboard*)**

Rose had no idea that the Tardis doubled as a torture chamber.

It had been a month since their visit to Torchwood, and in that month, the Doctor had managed to get her hopes up over a proposal one too many times. The first few instances had been tolerable—they weren't much different from the shoe-shining incident, and the aftermath just resulted in a mild annoyance, mostly because she had thought they would eventually lead up to a dramatic proposal, with flowers and candles and a beautiful dinner and some Scooby-Doo on a nice TV to set the Master in front of: AKA, the definition of perfection.

Then, she stumbled into the kitchen, where the table was set and candles were lit and flowers were surrounding the floor and the Master was nowhere to be found. She was near crying when she noticed that the Doctor was nowhere to be found either. She followed the sound of hearty laughter until she was in the den of the Tardis.

The Doctor and the Master were sitting in front of a television, watching old episodes of _Scooby-Doo, Where Are You__? _with a bowl of popcorn in reach.

"Hiya, Rose!" greeted the Doctor. "Wanna watch?"

She almost quite literally killed the two of them.

The Master hurled a handful of popcorn into the air and caught only three pieces in his mouth. "It's the one with the—"

"I don't want to know what's in it!" Rose snapped, furious. "Doctor, is there something else you may want to be doing right now?"

_PLEASE LET THERE BE SOMETHING ELSE HE WANTS TO BE DOING!!!_

The Doctor frowned. "Like what?"

_Like proposing to me so that I don't have a stroke and die alongside our unborn child, who is probably thinking that you're a complete idiot right now_.

She attempted to look like she wasn't slowly starting to hate him. "Erm, what's that dinner for?"

"The dinner?" The Doctor appeared positively perplexed, but the Master understood immediately.

"Oh, that! That was for me. I fancied a rather extravagant meal and I thought, 'Hey, why not dress the table up a bit? It's only fettuccini Alfredo. That right there is incentive enough to act like you're eating with the Queen, right?'"

"That makes no sense," Rose stated.

"Not to mention, it's entirely pathetic," said the Doctor.

"And that's why neither of you are getting any Alfredo. Mind you, it's probably cold by now. I got a bit sidetracked, obviously." He motioned to the television, where Fred had fallen backwards into a secret passage.

"You sure you don't want to join us?" the Doctor asked Rose hopefully, patting the floor beside him, but Rose was too frustrated and disappointed and annoyed and countless other things to sit down and watch cartoon characters run from each other every three minutes. Declining the Doctor's offer, she turned and hurried away, because her hormones were acting up tremendously, and being in the same room as the two oblivious Time Lords would surely end in their demise.

This had been two days ago. Still no proposal, no perfection, and the Master had gotten sick of Scooby-Doo.

Of course, she'd pondered just going ahead and proposing to the Doctor herself, but then she thought back to how much he'd really wanted to get things right when he was making plans with the Torchwood boys. Could she really steal his moment? No, she wouldn't do that to him. She sort of loathed him, but she loved him too much to do anything like that. With the patience of her unborn child to suffice the both of them (Rose hadn't the faintest idea where this trait had come from, for it certainly wasn't from any of the Tylers), she would calmly wait for the Doctor's eventual question.

"MURDER IN THE HALL!" the Master screamed as Rose pinned him to the wall, pure rage in her eyes, although it was most amusing to see a frightened Master. He held his hands up in defense, cowering against the wall. "What are you doing, you mad pregnant woman?!"

"Why hasn't the Doctor proposed yet?" she demanded, her hands at the collar of his shirt.

The Master blinked. "_That's_ what you're a total nutter over?"

"He said last month that he would propose to me. I heard your little meeting with Torchwood."

"_Oh_. You _heard_ that?" grinned the Master. His second-long fear that his life may end vanished the moment a cocky smirk emerged from the dimples on his face.

"Yes, I bloody heard it! You dumbbells left the bloody door open! I could hear every—" Suddenly, the truth dawned on her, hitting her like a punch to the face. She let go of the Master and backed away, her hands rubbing her bulging stomach to soothe her. "You knew we could hear, didn't you?"

He shrugged nonchalantly, but she could see that he was holding back a snort. "Maybe."

It may have been the pregnancy-induced hormones which made her slap him across the face, or perhaps it was just the fact that, at that moment, she really didn't like him. Either way, her hand left a distinct red print on his left cheek.

"What are you hitting me for?!" he cried, stroking his pained face. "I'm not the one who wants to marry you!"

Realization sunk in once more.

"You're absolutely right!" Scowling, Rose balled her fists and whirled on her heel, stomping to wherever the Doctor was. She found him in the unfinished nursery, a light purple room with stars adorned over the walls and different planets hanging from the ceiling. The Doctor sat in the center of the floor, trying to put a crib together, pieces and parts strewn out around him, and seeing him so hard at work and so determined made her forget about murdering him.

No, she wouldn't kill him. She had a much better plan.

"Working hard or hardly working?" she asked lightly, advancing into the nursery with a skip to her step.

"More like slowly dying on the inside," he muttered, turning the directions of the crib in different ways, like seeing it in a new position would make things easier. "I now remember why I'm so against things domestic. Much too complicated."

"Surely someone who's saved planets can build a simple crib."

"I'm an alien, not a craftsman."

"You fix things in the Tardis all the time!"

"Yes, but those were technical things! I can do technical things."

"But not baby cribs."

The Doctor looked up, frowning to himself, understanding the flaw in his defense. "Yes…?"

"You're positively mad and you may be the most confusing person I've ever met in my life."

"And yet, for some reason, you still stay with me, which must imply that it is _you_, Rose Tyler, who is much madder than I am."

She merely smiled. He was probably right.

"Doctor, what do you think about marriage?" she asked cunningly, taking a seat on a velvet red armchair and hoping she would never have to get up again within the next hour or so.

He reached across the floor for a hammer. "What d'you mean?"

"Well, I have this _friend_, you see. She's been caught in this situation with this bloke she knows, and she expects that they'll have to get married because of it, but more because they're in love with each other and marriage is what they want rather than the situation itself. At least, _she_ wants to get married to him."

He cocked his head to the side, visibly intrigued. "Well, how do you know that he wants to get married too?"

"Because he already tried to ask her once, but was cut off before he could manage to finish."

"Poor chap. Sounds a bit pathetic."

"Yes,"—she smiled—"I believe he is."

"So what are they going to do?"

Rose could hardly believe that he had no idea what she was referring to. "Actually, they are going to get married. She knows he's planning on asking her."

"And how does she know that? Isn't half the point of proposing is the shock?"

"Well, it's a bit complicated. She had overheard him talking with some of his mates about proposing to her, but since then, he hadn't actually popped the question. He keeps making her believe that he's about to, but it turns out he's only sort of leading her on."

"How dreadful."

"Yes, it is. And you want to know the kicker?" She leaned over slightly, peering at him through narrowed eyes. "As it happens, he knows that she knows that he's trying to propose to her."

"He's tricking her? That must make her awfully angry."

She clenched her jaw tightly. "You have no idea."

"So what is she going to do?"

"She's not quite sure. When she first found out, she had planned on killing him."

"Understandable."

"Yes, but now she's going to try to make him propose."

"Isn't that a bit cruel? I mean, if she knows that he's still going to propose to her, even if it's after a bit of torture, shouldn't she wait it out until he finally does ask her?"

"She'd be more willing to go along with it if he weren't making her tear her hair out because he keeps playing these mind games with her!" Rose shouted.

The Doctor nodded. "I guess that makes sense."

"Yes, Doctor. It does make sense, doesn't it?" She stared at him icily, which he didn't notice for a minute. When he finally did look up, he blinked at her.

"Rose, why are you looking at me like that?"

She nearly laughed. "Why am _I _looking at you like this? You _really_ want to know?"

"If this is about your friend, tell her I'm very sorry and that I'm rooting for her, but this isn't any of our business, so there's no reason to take your loyalty with her and annoyance at her not-fiancé out on me."

There was a twitch in Rose's eye before she snapped.

"No reason to take things out on _you_? Are you serious, Doctor? There's every reason to take this out on you! This is all your doing!"

"Rose, I don't know these friends of yours, remember?"

She heard the Master's cackles from the hallway outside.

"They're not my friends, Doctor! These people don't exist! I made them up!"

"Why would you do that?" the Doctor inquired, so genuinely puzzled that Rose wanted to knock her hand against his brain in the hopes that his common sense might wake up from its obvious nap.

"Because it's a metaphor, that's why!"

"Rose, I don't—"

"It's you, Doctor! You are the guy and I am the friend who knows that the guy is going to propose but hasn't because he's playing her!" The only thing that was keeping her from killing him at the moment was the calming effect Little Alien Baby was trying to have on her. The light bursts of ease in her mind were slowly unraveling her rage, but Rose knew that not even the mind link between herself and her unborn child would soothe her completely.

Also, she had to keep in mind that if she killed the Doctor, the only other Time Lord left she'd be able to turn to for help of raising the baby would be the Master, and there was no way that that was going to happen. Ever.

_Ever_.

She watched as the Doctor's face changed gradually, from something of confusion to one of consciousness, where his eyes went very wide and he paled and he understood exactly why Rose had murder in her eyes.

He gulped. "So, you know, then?"

"Are you really that stupid?" exclaimed the Master, barging into the room. "Of course she knows!"

Subtly, the Doctor began to slide away from Rose. He laughed in the hopes of lightening the mood, but when no such thing occurred, his weak smile vanished. He pointed an accusing finger at the Master. "It was his idea!"

"Oh, sure!" he growled. "Let's all blame the Master! He already gets blamed for everything else."

"That's because you actually _do_ everything we blame you for!"

"Be that as it may, it'd still be nice to be in the clear for once! And anyway, you didn't have to listen!"

"_Enough_!" Rose yelled, forcing herself to stand back up, despite her internal wishes of staying seated. However, her need to look intimidating trumped over her need to rest in a comfortable chair. "Doctor, how could you possibly do this?"

"It was just something to keep you guessing! I was told that it would be fun!" He glared menacingly at the Master. "She wasn't supposed to get angry!"

The Master rolled his eyes. "I don't reckon she was supposed to get pregnant either, and yet, here we are."

"Master, I'm going to _kill_ you."

"I may help," Rose muttered, for now her hatred towards the Master was equal to her hatred towards the Doctor. "Honestly, don't any of you know anything about women?"

"I know that if they want to get married, they're independent enough to pop the question so that it's not all on the other person in the relationship!" the Doctor cried, jumping to his feet.

"I thought I was protecting your pride! Men get so defensive about that sort of thing! I thought that if I gave you enough time, you'd just ask me like someone normal!"

"Rose, that's too domestic! You know I don't like domestic!"

"Then why should you even want to be with me? I _certainly_ wouldn't want to tie you down or anything! Maybe you should just forget everything about marriage, how does that sound?"

"That all depends on how it sounds to you, because you don't want to get married, then there's really nothing I can do, is there?"

"What would make you think that I wouldn't want to get married?! The whole reason we're screaming at each other is because I want to get married, but you listened to the only other living Time Lord cheese ball and you're too _anti-domestic_ to ask me!"

"Oi!" the Master shouted indignantly. "I am not a cheese ball!"

"Master, do everyone a favor and shut up!"

The Master made a face, taking as much offense as he could possibly manage. "_Well_! This certainly is a _brilliant_ place to raise a child in!" He turned and stormed out of the nursery, all the while yelling very loudly, "I know when I've been insulted!"

Rose stepped up to the Doctor, still furious. "Do you want to marry me or not?"

"Yes! I'm madly in love with you, dammit! Do you want to marry _me_ or not?"

"Don't be daft! Of course I want to marry you! I'm even more in love with you than you are with me!"

"Ha! I doubt that!"

"Oh, really? And how would you figure that?"

"Because—erm…" The Doctor ran a frustrated hand through his hair, thinking up anything to go against Rose's disbelief. Then, once he thought of something to prove himself, he acted on his impulse by capturing her lips in a kiss that nearly knocked the wind out of her and probably could have killed her, considering the fragile pregnant state she was in, but she didn't care. All thought process was left behind, and she ran her fingers through the Doctor's brown locks, taking in how soft it really was.

When she reluctantly pushed him away to breathe, they were both panting and stunned to silence.

"So…" he started, his voice faltering slightly. "We're getting married?"

She nodded. "It seems that we are."

"That's kind of remarkable." He grinned, and she grinned just as brightly back. All form of anger and rage had disappeared now.

"Yeah, it is," she breathed. "Very good."

"Very great."

"Yeah."

They both let out a long sigh, the quiet looming over them, only to be broken when the Master poked his head back into the nursery.

"Oh." He sounded a little disappointed. "I thought you'd killed each other."

"No, but we _are_ engaged," Rose beamed at him.

"Oh, you are, are you? And who proposed to whom? More importantly, whose idea was it that started all this proposing nonsense?"

The Doctor raised a hand. "Er, mine."

"It most certainly was not!" the Master shot back. "_I_ was the one who suggested you lead her on. If that hadn't happened, she wouldn't have hunted you down, and then you wouldn't have had a shouting cage match, and then nobody would be getting married! You can thank me later." Triumphantly, he harrumphed, and he left their vision in favor of searching for a banana.

When Rose finally left the nursery to call and tell her mother the good news (though it was debatable how good it was to Jackie), she left feeling every mixture of happiness that existed. Reality truly came to her, and it came like she'd just run into a particularly hard wall.

_I'm getting married. I'm having a baby. OH MY GOD._

However, even though she couldn't believe that this was really her life, she couldn't help but think that a candlelit dinner would have been much too clichéd for a proposal setting. Yes, a shouting cage match was much more perfect.


	10. Back To The Beginning

**Let it be known that I had positively no idea what I was doing for this chapter. No plan, not any idea whatsoever. Up in the air, but without George Clooney (I still want to see that movie). This is going to be a cycle for the next few chapters too, because I know how I'm going to end (sad) the story, but it's those darn fillers I'm worried about. But not to fret, they will all be filled with Doctor-Rose-Master love goodness and stuff.**

**And I nearly put off posting for another day because I made the mistake of eating a bunch of cake and then two trukey burgers. NOT a good idea. I still can't bear the word "cookie." (*cringes*)**

**But I love you all, because you're so nice and supportive. So I shove my pain aside and post CHAPTER 10!!!! WOOO-HOOOO!!!! The big 1-0, yo. I feel like I'm in a telethon. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who_. If I did, some things would have gone totally different, dude, but I don't own it, so you can forget it.**

Henrik's was the last place Rose imagined she'd be going for a wedding dress. In reality, Earth was the last _planet_ she thought she'd be buying her wedding dress on, and yet, here she was, standing on the concrete sidewalk in front of the shop where everything had started. It was because of this very shop that she had met the Doctor in the first place, therefore making this very shop the entire reason she was currently with child.

_Weird_.

She had earlier assumed that different planets—being so extravagant and unbelievable, in contrast to the one planet she was so used to—would have wedding dresses available to her that strayed from anything average, as well as not being too horrific. This was the dream: that everything she would need for a wondrous wedding would come to her with every landing the Tardis made on the lands of new and breathtaking places. The Doctor was even helping her plan the event, yet another reason why she could never deny her love for him. His job was booking the church and deciding which great alien leaders would sit next to whom (to avoid the potential of wars breaking out) at the reception.

Enter the Master, who apparently lived to kill people's dreams. Her dream of a beautiful, unique wedding dress was cast aside when he slammed half a dozen wedding dress magazines in front of her.

"There," he said, pleased with himself, but for doing what, she didn't know and was a little afraid to find out.

"What are these?" she asked warily.

"All your hopes in booklet form." He peeled off the cover of the first magazine, letting Rose gape at the horrendous fashions for wedding dresses — but no — they were too awful to be considered wedding dresses. They were more like scraps glued together.

"What _are_ these?!" she shrieked, gazing in horror at each magazine to see if it was true.

"These, Poppy, are the fantabulous wedding dresses you've been anticipating to see for so long. Well, here you go. Each one from a different planet."

Rose had to look at one dress upside down. "This isn't a dress, it's an inflatable chair."

The Master only shrugged, clearly smug, and shoved his hands into his pockets.

The moment he left her to her grief, she snatched her mobile and dialed her mother's number as if her life was at risk.

Gazing up at the Henrik's building now, it was nearly impossible to believe how much things had changed in her life. What had happened to the concept of normalcy? Did it disappear the moment she met the Doctor? Or perhaps nothing had ever been normal, and maybe it was even for good reason. Maybe a lack of regularity was good thing. After all, she would have never met the Doctor without it, and she certainly wouldn't be pregnant with the child that she adored so dearly.

"Rose, are you coming?" Jackie called after her. Rose nodded and trailed after her mother, into the shop and all its memories.

The prestigious section of wedding dresses in the store was small but beautiful. Each white gown was made with the utmost precision, not a bead or piece of embroidery out of place, the fabric only the best. Rose recalled stocking up the dresses when she worked at Henrik's, but she could not admit that she spent her days sighing with eagerness over her wedding day. She'd been much too young at the time (not that she was so much older now), and back then, the idea of marrying anyone would have resulted in a vision of Mickey in tails by her side. This idea was only one of amusement, for marrying Mickey wasn't ever something she or the implausible groom had truly considered, and Mickey hated wearing tails, anyhow.

Jackie returned to the dressing room with a stack of dresses, clearly more than was permitted to take into a changing room. She'd probably fought over half of them.

"I like this one the best," she told Rose automatically, holding out a white silk gown with lace and beads and ribbons and basically everything else that had been lying around the room it was designed in. Rose tried out the dress before the others, and as her mother continued to point out, it looked gorgeous. Rose had her breath taken from her at the sight of herself in a wedding dress, of all things. Because she was getting married.

And that was far too freaky to comprehend until now.

Jackie was in tears when she saw the gown on her daughter, thinking back to the days of a young Rose playing with her dolls and trying out make up and dressing up with her other little friends. Where had all the time gone?

"This isn't it," Rose sighed, and Jackie wiped her eyes to narrow them.

"It isn't? Why not? You look like an angel!"

Rose shrugged. Her eyes flitted from her stomach to the dress itself. Certainly, it was remarkable, but it wasn't _the_ dress. She's seen enough to believe that somewhere in the universe was the dream gown she would wear at her wedding. She just had to find it.

* * *

The Doctor did not like shopping. And most of the time, he did not like the Master. Give him a doomed government, a crazed dictator or a planet with a sentence of T-minus-ten-till-self-destruct. He'd take it any day. But shopping, he did not like, and the Master, he did not like.

So he really did not like shopping with the Master.

"Would you stop pouting so much?" the Master nagged. In his hands were a cornucopia of shopping bags from every store they passed by, and the objects inside them were just as pointless as one could imagine, at least if it had been bought by the yin to the Doctor's yang.

"Would _I_ stop pouting?" the Doctor snorted. "That's rich, coming from the man who makes moping an Olympic sport."

The Master harrumphed. "To prove that I'm far more mature than you are, I'm going to take the high road and practice a little technique I like to call '_ignoring you_'. You ever hear of it?"

"Only when you're around."

"Oh, come now. Don't be like that." The Master looped his arm through the Doctor's lagging one. "We can't fight. We're BFFFFs… or whatever that stupid-but-somehow-still-existing Earth acronym goes. The only way we're going to find a decent tux for you is if we keep a positive attitude."

The Doctor stared at the Master as if he had grown three extra heads.

The Master frowned. "I don't know where that came from either."

"I think you need to lay off on the energy drinks."

"Bite your tongue."

The Doctor sighed and allowed himself to be dragged into the Henrik's shop. Deciding to block out the Master's incessant voice, the Doctor remembered the day he met Rose Tyler in the basement of the same shop, only he looked quite different back then. Regardless of his transformation in looks and personality, he could still recall how much he admired the brilliant Miss Tyler, the deep love he felt for her that actually revealed itself to him back when they'd met Jack, and he witnessed how much Rose had fawned over the then-stranger.

Not that he'd ever tell Jack any of that. No need to inflate his ego any more.

Suit shopping wasn't nearly as stressful as he expected wedding dress shopping was for Rose, who'd spent the last three days pouring her devotion into discovering the perfect dress. The Doctor, despite his love for Earth, didn't think he'd ever fully understand such simple customs from the human planet, such as desiring the most perfect piece of fabric in the entire galaxy, but he decided that the need was universal, for it was no different on Gallifrey. Only there was the dress traditionally green instead of white. This was precisely what he told Rose earlier that day.

"Green's a _great_ color," he'd explained, trying to be biased. Unfortunately, even he knew how much of a terrible liar he was.

Rose played along anyway. "Is it?" she asked inquisitively, finishing writing out the menu for the reception (the everlasting war between chicken and fish reigned on).

"It's the color of plants," he said positively. "Plants are good. We can breathe because of them, and that's quite helpful."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

Much like her sarcasm, he really didn't notice the dry line of humor. "And it's made from blue and yellow, and we all like blue and yellow. Yellow's the color of the sun and blue is the color of… well, blue things."

"Weren't we once almost burnt to a crisp by the sun after being sentenced to a flaming prison of doom?"

"In with the positive, out with the negative, Rose. I'm trying to be subtle."

"And what would you possibly need to be subtle about?" she asked innocently, leaning toward him, a teasing glint in her eyes. She was fairly good at covering up most of the hints to what she knew was what he was trying so hard to imply, but she couldn't help the light giggle that escaped her after watching the Doctor's increasing frustration.

He scowled and got up from his seat. "You're despicable," he mumbled, and he walked out the door in a halfhearted huff.

If someone (not the Master) asked the Doctor if he ever thought that he would one day marry Rose Tyler, the shop girl he met in this very shop just before he blew it up—_What fun times_—he would have denied that he'd even considered the idea of falling in love with her, which was a lie. He'd considered the idea all too frequently, but just as frequently pushed it aside, for falling for someone wasn't part of the runaway Time Lord plan.

But then again, the baby hadn't been either, and by now, the Doctor and Rose were all too aware of how pleasant unexpected surprises really were.

He could have reveled over his upcoming marriage and child for hours, but the Master brought him out of his head by shoving him behind a stack of men's ties. Before he could demand to know what was wrong with his partner in crime, the Master shushed him and pointed.

"It's the flower and her she-witch mother!"

The Doctor's eyes darted down the aisle that lied ahead. Indeed, there was Rose and Jackie, browsing over the small selection of ready-made wedding dresses. Jackie's arms were packed with white gowns, while Rose looked so fragile in her pregnant state, studying each dress to the point where she could probably describe them by heart later. The Doctor watched her for a few more seconds before he realized how suspicious he and the Master must have appeared. Also, he was still getting a beating from Jackie over the whole proposal fiasco, and he was near-certain that stalking her as she decided on a wedding dress would not aid him in getting brownie points.

"Oh, get up!" he hissed, pulling the Master to his feet. "You're being ridiculous!"

"Please! Like you honestly don't want to see which dress Poinsettia picks out," the Master snorted. "She won't even know we're here."

"Somehow I highly doubt that. You're track record of deceitful plans isn't as high and mighty as you believe. I nearly got my head ripped off the last time I listened to you. I refuse to do that again, so bugger off and let me just pick out a suit in peace!"

The Master blinked. "All right. Have it your way. Hey, Orchid, Orchid's mother!" Then, he waved at Rose and Jackie in such a loud and showy manner that it wasn't only the Tylers whose attention he'd gained. The Doctor tackled him to the floor before any more damage could be done.

* * *

But it was too late. Rose and Jackie had seen the Master and caught the glimpse of the Doctor as he slammed the Master down behind a shelf. Jackie and Rose exchanged odd glances and waltzed over to the two arguing Time Lords, while a mound of shopping bags from other shops surrounded them.

"What are you doing?!" the Doctor was growling at the Master as the Tyler women approached them. "Are you completely insane?! They are going to murder me!"

The Master just looked up at him coolly, shrugging the Doctor off. "You mess with the bull…"

"What's going on here?" The manager of Henrik's was towering over the Doctor and Master's strange position, as the Doctor was sitting on top of the Master, pinning his arms above his head. Rose giggled and emerged with her mother into view. Seeing them, the Doctor and Master paled even more than they had at the appearance of the shop manager.

"Hello, boys," Jackie greeted brightly with a defined smirk.

Rose bit down on her bottom lip to subside the laughter. "Is there something you might want to tell me, darling?" she asked the Doctor innocently. In reply, he grimaced, removing himself from the Master.

"Officer, this man has been following me for days now, and it's becoming quite unnerving!" accused the Master, pointing his index finger at the Doctor. "I didn't want to cause a scene, but he just won't leave me alone! Everywhere I go, every corner I turn, there he is! I have a wife and three children! Doesn't their safety matter at all?"

"Do you _have_ an off switch?" snapped the Doctor. "And really, I wouldn't stalk you if you were the last person alive! If anyone, I would stalk the Great One of Paroom! Now _there's_ a bloke worth being restrained against. All those towers on Paroom, miles tall, with the songs of the Paroomian Pearl written into the walls. Beautiful, every one of 'em," he added to Rose. "We must make a note of visiting there."

"See?" exclaimed the Master. "He's a complete nutter! And a dog, I have a dog, too! Yes, we call him… er… Doggy."

"Is that the best you can come up with?" Jackie asked.

The Master didn't get the chance to answer, for that was when security arrived and forcibly removed him and the Doctor from the shop. As Rose watched her fiancé get kicked out of the shop with as much dignity as one could have while with the Master, she prayed that every day would be like this when their child arrived, that it would be just as insane and delightful as this very moment was. Somehow, she suspected that it would.

She and Jackie turned back to the wedding dresses and continued on their quest.

* * *

In the end, the hunt for the perfect dress was resolved, but not in the form of the particular dress that Jackie had adored. In fact, they hadn't even gotten the dress from Henrik's. After leaving the shop, dejected by the lack of a discovery, Rose stumbled across a bohemian shop called Mad Max's Wedding Emporium, filled with an array of dresses that were beyond the norm. It didn't take long to find the most beautiful one she'd ever laid eyes on. Immediately, it was purchased, and she and Jackie were on their way, even more content than they had been after seeing the Doctor and Master's fumble.

Rose sighed, staring at the billowy dress with butterfly sleeves and a few sequins just along the waist. She smiled and tucked the deep green wedding gown safely into the back of the wardrobe, waiting to be worn on their special day.


	11. The Eighth Month

**Holy mother of pearl, I thought I had no idea what I was going to do for the last chapter, but man, this one makes that one look like I'd planned something. Anything. I hadn't the faintest clue what this one was going to entail, other than words. Which are kind of required for a story.**

**I'm hoping this chapter meets the standards of my writingnoscity. It's slightly more of an internal-Rose than the zany adventures of the Tardis trio, but I felt that an internal-Rose was sort of needed before the next last few chapters. I _really_ hope everyone likes it, especially since I created this chapter out of thin air (OoOo, magic!!!), and I am deeply honored by all of your awesome support. You're all beautiful people!**

**Disclaimer: I claim that I do not claim that I own _Doctor Who._**

"What do you mean, I have to stay?" Rose gaped up at the Doctor, horrified by his proposal that she stay put in the Tardis while he and the Master went traversing on some planet called Dwink in the hopes that they'd be able to resolve a massive war between the planet's inhabitants and their imposing invaders, the aliens called Rocorin. They had received the distress call earlier that day.

"Rose," the Doctor said, much calmer than she was, and he sat her down on the console bench, "you're in your third trimester, and for a Time Lord child—"

"_Half_-Time Lord child," she reminded.

"Okay, but even for a _half_-Time Lord child, the mother's anxiety level can be critical. The slightest amount of stress can be harmful."

"Not that you should feel any pressure," the Master mumbled dryly.

"Don't you start," the Doctor snapped.

"So while you two go off, I'm supposed to stay here and pretend that I'm not worried about how you could be killed?" Rose said, critical.

The Master gasped. "Oh, Pansy! I didn't know you cared so much about me! I'm touched."

"For the last time, _my name is Rose_!"

"Technically, it won't be the last time, since you said it would be the last time the last time you said it would be the last time, so really, I don't think I can trust you. Just saying."

"Keep on like that and I'll make it so that you won't be able to _just say _anything at all!"

"SEE? THIS IS STRESS!" The Doctor shoved the Master off of the part of the console he was sitting on and grabbed him by the ear. He ignored the Master's audible aggravation and proceeded to put him in a headlock, all the while, giving Rose a reassuring smile.

"It'll be fine," he told her. "We'll go, and you can have the whole Tardis to yourself. Just stay away from the room marked 'Do not enter,' because I'd rather not have you be eaten before our wedding day. But don't worry! You probably won't be missing out on much while we're gone, anyway. Just politics, and you know how boring that sort of thing can be."

"Yeah, he's right," the Master agreed. "Enjoy your stay alone with the unknown man-eating whatever monster only kept behind the safety of a bloody _door_. You should feel totally secure."

Rose moaned and buried her face in her hands, not paying attention to the Doctor squeezing tighter on his hold around the Master's neck.

So that was why she sat in the console room of the Tardis, all alone, at least when it came to the means of people who were already born. Little Alien Baby sat with her, comforting her sheer boredom by reminding her that they were both incredibly hungry, and that they wanted some strawberry-banana yogurt. Right. Now.

After relieving her craving, she began to walk aimlessly around the Tardis. To this day, it still astounded her how large the blue box really was. Every day she discovered something new, whether it was a room or a secret passage. She knew that there were hundreds of different bedrooms that looked like they had been lived in once, but had never gotten the chance to be cleaned out. The Doctor told her of a few of the rooms, that they had been lived in by his former companions (the ones whom he'd never gotten pregnant, although he could have always been lying), and that he hadn't had the heart to empty them of their old residents' stray belongings. Rose always smiled at the thought of this. She hoped that—if anything were to happen to her so that she could no longer travel in the Tardis—the Doctor would never clean out her room either, so that he would never forget her.

However, she imagined that the fact that they were having a child together would ensure her safety in that department.

Curiosity getting the best of her, she wandered up the hallway to the Doctor and the Master's different rooms, which were straight across from each other—an ironic factor, as they both made it obvious that they feared they might be strangled by the other person in the middle of the night. She'd seen the Doctor's quarters before (long before any drunken night following a visit to Picasso), but it looked almost entirely different than how she remembered. It always had the resemblance to a small library or museum, but now, there was less clutter of different artifacts scavenged from times and planets. Things were cleaner, which she didn't understand at all, not until she noticed that all of the sharp corners of desks and tables sharper objects had been moved to higher shelves. Once she made the connection, she beamed proudly at the attempt at baby-proofing the Doctor had made. She couldn't help but wonder how often he thought about Little Alien Baby without telling her.

The Master's room, she'd never visited before. To her, it was a danger zone, at least when he was around. She was positive that his bedroom had to be filled with weapons of mass destruction or plans to hunt down weapons of mass destruction or pictures of one specific person pinned on the walls to the point where it was horrifying. She expected missiles and guns and strategies to rule the universe. Maybe an escape plan or two in case he landed himself in prison. Or a self-help book.

But when she threw open the door, she was taken aback completely.

It was just a room, one like the Doctor's but without so many books and even tidier. The room was all white, sort of reminding Rose of an insane asylum, except there wasn't a straightjacket in the corner (though she and the Doctor had their suspicions that the Master may need one), nor was there an electric chair. There was, however, an overly large amount of crisps in one corner, stacked high up against the intersecting walls.

_So that's why we had such a crisp shortage so suddenly!_

She allowed herself to steal some (the Master wouldn't miss it—hopefully) and continue to peruse the bedroom, content and cured of her latest craving.

It was strange how everything was so normal. He had a wardrobe filled with random antiques he'd discovered in the past, and there wasn't a trace of dust on them. If only he could clean just as compulsively when he wasn't confined to his room. Further in the back of the wardrobe was a box of weapons, of small guns and lasers and things that would be snatched from him immediately if the Doctor knew about them. The sonic laser sat at the tip of the mountain.

Then, poking out between the bottom of the wardrobe and the floor was a book. Rose glanced around—she was positive that the Master had some sort of security camera set up in case curious eyes came wandering into the sanctuary—and when she saw that she was safe, that the Master and the Doctor hadn't returned that very minute and weren't going to barge in and demand to know what she was doing (or the Master, at least; Rose was fairly certain the Doctor wouldn't care), she snatched the book from its half-hiding spot.

It was a book of baby names.

_You mean he's actually looking into this?_ Rose was bewildered at the Master's devotion, in case the baby did turn out to be a girl. Unable to stop herself, for she was too far gone now, she opened the little book to see what the Master was planning.

The book had everything, from the names (of course) to meanings and origins and what planet or time the names were from. Scribbles were written in the margins, about how one name would sound stupid next to the surname Tyler, or how another name was one worth considering. Names were circled and crossed out, had stars written beside them, and pages were dog-eared if they held names that the Master particularly liked. Rose was astounded, perhaps far more astounded than she'd ever been, and _that_ was saying something.

When she finally got over the initial shock, she allowed the corners of her mouth to turn upwards. It was things like this that reminded her why she and the Doctor tolerated the Master so much.

She returned the book to its partially concealed place on the floor and exited the room, beaming at no one at all.

Eventually, she found herself staring into the future room of the Little Alien Baby. It was much more furnished than it had been in previous months, no longer just a very purple room with the contents of broken crib pieces and a dismayed block of wood that the Doctor had become far too angry with (he'd been trying his hand at carving a duck). No, along with the crib, it had a wardrobe and a changing table and approximately half a million toys (give or take a few) from the fantastical planets that were at peace with the Doctor and had heard of his upcoming parenthood. Only a few of the toys they'd received were not what they'd consider "safe" for newborns, but they accepted the gifts anyway. It was the thought that counted, not the fact that some people thought babies liked to play with miniature "Fun Grenades."

Apparently, word traveled fast across the universe. Rose didn't fully understand how this could be, but she had been a traveler of the stars long enough to know that some things were not meant to be understood, to her (and anyone else's) annoyance.

With the wedding and the due date of the Little Alien Baby—not to mention, the inevitable chaos that would ensue at the intergalactic wedding reception—Rose had nearly _too_ much on her plate. She amused herself with the thought of some high and mighty alien emperor being squashed like a bug by Jackie, or the idea that Jack would turn the charm on to every single wedding guest (which he would, without a doubt). She thought of after the wedding, when Little Alien Baby would finally arrive to change hers and the Doctor's lives forever. The child in question was currently sending her flashes of excitement to subconsciously make her inch toward a little mobile hanging over the crib, one of all the "main" planets of the solar system (as far as most humans knew). Rose would poke the mobile with her finger and she could almost hear the baby squeal with delight.

Rose did not know what her child was going to become, but it didn't take rocket science to see that—whatever or whoever it would be—it would definitely not take much to amuse it.

Rose spun the mobile around once more and then left the nursery, closing the door softly, like there was already a sleeping baby inside. Although a bit nervous about what was to come, she rubbed her stomach and carried on through the Tardis to ease her complete and total boredom.

* * *

When the Doctor and the Master returned, she'd set up a buffet of food around the Tardis console so that she wouldn't have to move too much if she needed something while she watched _My Fair Lady_ on the screen. Eliza Doolittle was at a horse race when the two Time Lords came tumbling in, slamming the door shut behind them with a _bang_.

"Hurry and get us out of here!" the Master yelled, shoving his entire person against the door in case someone tried barge into the spaceship. The Doctor jumped over the bags of food, only to punch a number of different buttons and throw just as many levers.

"What's going on?" Rose demanded, panicked. While she was worried over whatever was happening, she was not worried enough to feel she should try to move from her spot. "I thought you were asked to settle peace!"

"We did!" the Doctor cried, rushed. "We stopped the war, they aren't fighting, and it's all good with them now."

"It's just that _they're_ not as good with _us_ anymore," concluded the Master. "On the plus side, you can cut back on the guest count a bit!"

The Doctor pounded his hand on a big orange button, and the Tardis went spiraling. Rose kept her position by holding onto her seat for dear life. She wished that, at least if they _had_ to run so they wouldn't be killed, they could go about it in a much gentler manner. However, she recalled the times when things like that never mattered, when she could be tossed around the Tardis freely and somehow still manage to keep from having a concussion, and she couldn't help but ask herself if—come next month—she'd ever feel like that again.

But she had to admit: she never liked how much her feet ached after all that lovely running.


	12. The Ninth Month And The Night Before

**THE ELEVENTH HOUR IS ON TONIGHT!!!!!!!! I'm so excited...(!!!!) I mean, fo sho, David Tennant will ALWAYS be my Doctor, but I'm for the sake of the show, I'm pumped for this season (series in England, chips/crisps, whatever). Heck yeah.**

**It's a little short, this chapter is, but I'm proud of it, I have to say, I also was at a loss to what I was going to do for this chapter (but not as much as I was for Chapter 11), and although I was winging this, I have to say, this is one of my favorite chapters in the entire story. You'll figure out why. ;D**

**And dude, all those reviews? Holy Toledo! I never even thought I'd get the support of ten people. You people rock like Donkey Kong.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who_. David Tennant would be here if I did, but he isn't, so I clearly don't own squat. ****Also, the two definitions for "baby shower" and "bachelorette party" I just copy and pasted off of the dictionary on my Word program, and that dictionary was Encarta World English Dictionary or something. I could have written the definitions myself, but they weren't in the book-dictionary we have on the bookcase (God forbid someone might want to look up a definition for a word) and I was also too lazy to write my own. So I don't own that either. (*shrugs and walks off*)**

**Let the reading commence.**

The dictionary defines a bachelorette party as "a party that is given for a woman on the night before her wedding and that is usually attended only by women." The dictionary defines a baby shower as "a party given by the women friends of somebody who is pregnant, at which she is given presents for the baby." Together, they make a bachelorette baby party shower sleepover.

None of these three concepts were fully understood by the last Time Lords in existence.

"I don't see why we can't come," the Doctor pouted. "I'm the bloody groom, for crying out loud!"

"It's a _bachelorette_ party, Doctor! Girls only, remember?" Rose snorted. She finished packing her toothbrush in her overnight bag, peering over her shoulder at the Master and her fiancé in the doorway. Both had their arms crossed over their chests, indignant at the thought of being left behind. Rose chuckled out how alike they'd become, regardless of whatever they so desperately insisted.

"These people you're ditching us to hang out with, they didn't even plan this wedding!" the Master complained. "Who was it that helped you slave over the menu? Who was it that told you that the flowers you'd chosen would clash with the colors? Not _them_!"

"He makes a fine point," the Doctor agreed with a nod. The Master nodded back to further help his case, and they became a nodding duo that Rose basically ignored.

"It's just for one night. And anyway, you two can have a party of your own."

The Doctor looked downcast at the floor, kicking the air with his foot. "It's not the same without you."

Rose turned and smiled warmly with tears brimming to spill. She cursed her hormones and tried to keep them at bay by simply reaching up to kiss the Doctor on the cheek. He gave her a meek half-smile, half-blush in return.

"I'll be back in less than twenty-four hours, and the next time you see me, we'll be getting married. You both go have a bachelor party in my absence, and that's an order," she said with a nod of her own. She grabbed her overnight bag, patted them on their heads, and then waddled out of the room with pain shooting through practically every inch of her being.

To endure this, she reminded herself that she'd been through worse.

Maybe.

The Doctor and Master stood in the doorway of Rose's room, silent, until they heard the doors of the Tardis slam shut. They waited a moment to see if Rose would come back, and when they realized that she wasn't going to, they merely looked at each other, expressions blank.

"I think we've realized something," the Master said.

The Doctor nodded. "We're completely lost without her."

"Yep. We're pathetic."

"Yep." The Doctor blinked. "We need hobbies."

"I _have_ a hobby," the Master boasted, but when the Doctor stared at him, his confidence faltered. "Oh, who am I kidding? I don't have a hobby. You people have drained the life out of me."

There wasn't a reply to this, as it was true, and the Doctor could only smirk to showcase his gratification. His smirk vanished a second later when he was reminded of what Rose instructed them to do.

"What exactly do we do for a bachelor party?" he asked. On Gallifrey, Time Lords did not have bachelor/bachelorette parties and they certainly did not have bachelor/bachelorette baby party shower sleepovers.

* * *

The bar the Doctor and the Master waltzed into was called Billy's, although they soon found out it was run by a man called Gil. Gil was tall with light ginger hair (the Doctor tried to hide his envy) and had a parrot that consistently sat upon his shoulder, squawking every time a customer entered the pub or requested some beverage entitled "The Big One." Because the Doctor didn't trust the name of the drink and because the Master didn't trust anything, neither of them ordered Billy's specialty. The Master did, however threaten to beat the bird's head in if he didn't shut up when they made their entrance into the pub.

"This is your bachelor party, you say?" Gil asked, fixing their lesser drinks while they sat uncertainly at the bar. "Pretty bad party, mate."

"Tell me about it," the Doctor snorted.

"I mean, where's all the beer? The women?"

"What women?" the Master inquired, cocking his head to the side. "I thought bachelor parties implied that it was _bachelors only_. '_Bachelor_' being the key term."

"I'm talking about women… you know." Gil leaned forward and murmured through his teeth, "At certain places…?"

"Like where?" asked the Doctor. "The market?"

"Why would he pick up women at the market a night before his wedding? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! His fiancée would kill him! " the Master exclaimed.

Gil slapped a hand to his face and the parrot on his shoulder mumbled something in gibberish, shaking his red, feathered head to himself. The Doctor and Master exchanged scoffing glances also, as if to silently comment how they were clearly in the presence of a crazy person and his equally funny bird.

"So, what else do you hu—I mean, civilians—do at these premarital shebangs?" questioned the Master, taking a sip from his drink after Gil handed it to him.

Gil shrugged off the oddities of his customers. "Well, I've only been to my brother's, but at his, we all stood around the telly, drunk, while we screamed at the screen about the current football."

"That doesn't sound any less normal than what you'll find in a regular pub," remarked the Doctor.

"Well, what are you expecting? Goodie bags and fingernail polish? You have to remember that this is your last night as a free man. You can do anything you want—preferably legal, but I'm not one to judge. You can go to the ends of the planet and back."

The Master choked on his drink.

The Doctor stared into his untouched beverage, deep in thought. Forget the planet—he'd been to the ends of time and back. What would happen if he weren't there for a day? Would the universe collapse in on itself, or would the hours go on, better than they had when he was around? He'd done so much in his ten incarnations. Surely, a simple bachelor party wouldn't be too burdening. And Rose _had_ insisted on it, and whether he liked it or not, he was aware that that girl had him wrapped around her finger.

With a new determination, the Doctor shoved his drink aside. For emphasis, he pounded his fist against the bar. "Gil, I'll have one Big One, please. And make it snappy."

While the Master choked on his drink for a second time (only this time, he was laughing, so if he died, it'd be hilarious), Gil cracked a smile and lightly punched the Doctor's shoulder. "Attaboy, Doc!"

The parrot squawked beside him, loud and obnoxious, and the Master swore his ears were going to bleed.

* * *

"GOAL!" The Doctor, Master, Gil, Gil's parrot, and a few other men that no one knew screamed at the top of their lungs, high-fiving each other (and missing) as the television above the bar showed off a win for Britain. The Doctor took another swig of his fifth drink, wishing that there was some other drink besides The Big One that he could drink, but was too drunk to do anything about it. Beside him, the Master rolled on the floor, laughing like a maniac at nothing at all. The Doctor gently kicked his shoe into the Master's side.

"_H-h-heeeeeeeyyyyyyyy_, Mister—I mean, Master." The Doctor chuckled. "Mister Master, Master Mister."

The Master tried to stand, but continued with his merriment. He grabbed onto the Doctor's nose and then balled his hand into a fist with his thumb sticking out between the middle and index finger. "Got yer nose!" Then, he threw himself to the bar, sobbing from laughing so hard. "Get-get it? I don't really have yer nose at all! It's an _illuuuuuusion_." He hiccupped.

"_Illuuuuuusion_," the Doctor repeated slowly, enunciating each syllable. "That's funny word."

The Master nodded and drank some of his sixth "Big One." Once he finished gulping it down, he reached over to Gil's head and snatched the parrot from the top of the bartender's head. Stroking its red feathers delicately, the Master held the parrot to his cheek and sang a few lines of "Kumbaya."

"_Someone's singin', Lord. Kuuummbayyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaa. Someone's somethin', Lord. Kuuummbayyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaa! OH, LORD!!!! Kuuummbayyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!_"

Gil noticed a few minutes later and joined in, and in a matter of moments, the entire pub was singing to what they thought was the song, but was really just the slurring of more than a dozen intoxicated folk.

The only sober part of the Doctor's brain told him to check the time. He blinked at the clock for a few minutes, taking note of its pretty roundness…

"Mister!" The Doctor grabbed the Master by his face and forced him to look at him. "It's nearly time to _gooooooo_!"

"Go? No! We can't _gooooooo_! We got here just… two minutes ago." He held up three fingers.

The Doctor shook his head in firm protest. "We have to go, Master! I'm gettin' married tomorrow!"

"_Whaaaaat_? Really?" The Master gasped, dropping the parrot to cover his mouth. The bird flapped back to Gil's head. "You're gettin' married? To who?"

The Doctor laughed and bopped the Master on the nose with a finger. "You know who, silly. It's _Rose_. Rosie-Rosie-Rose Tys-ler."

"Oh my gosh, I can't believe it!" The Master hurled himself at the Doctor, sending the both of them tumbling to the floor. The Master patted the Doctor on the back when the sat up. "We've known each other for for_ever_, and now wuz gonna 'appen? You're my best _fer-eeeeennnndddd_."

"Awwww, Mustard!" The Doctor leaned on the Master's shoulder. "You're my best friend, _too_."

"Thick as thieves, we are."

"Stick together 'til the end of the universe!"

"You, me, and Rosie-Posie-Olie."

"But not her mother."

"No! No… no, no, no, no, no…" The Master blinked. "Do you think I'm pretty?"

The Doctor didn't answer, for he had fallen asleep on the Master's shoulder, although he probably wouldn't have answered if he were conscious, anyway. The Master poked the side of the Doctor's face before he reached for the mobile in his companion's front pocket and half-drunkenly, half-responsibly dialed a number.

"_Helloooooooooooo_ there, Jack-Quack? I think we need,"—he yawned—"a ride home… Goal!" He cheered (more groaned) along with the rest of the motlies around him and then fell to the floor, the phone falling out of his hand. He drifted off into a deep, drunken sleep, sharing the same dreams with the Doctor, which involved football and weddings and parrots and flowers dressed in green.


	13. The Wedding

**Bloody power outage. Made me wait a day to post.**

**I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the newest season of _Doctor Who_. Like I said, I was excited, but still devoted to David (yeah, we're on a first-name basis), and therefore a little reluctant about Mr. Matt Smith. However, after watching The Eleventh Hour I realized: Holy frick, I absolutely LOVE this show. David's still my doc, but I gotta say, The Eleventh Hour was incredible. The Beast Below was a little more confusing to me, but I'm still in love with the series. I can't wait for the Weeping Angels to come back.**

**I adored all of the reviews from the last chapter and I bid you my gratitude for everyone's support. It's truly the only reason I'm still keepin' on keepin' on.**

**Disclaimer: My not owning _Doctor Who _has not changed in the week and a half since I last updated.**

There was no doubt about it. Rose was in love.

In love with her wedding dress.

"I want to marry this dress," she moaned, feeling the soft, deep green fabric that hung nicely over her obvious baby bump. Thank God for aliens and their special pain antidotes, for they were the only reason she was able to get up that morning and not complain about her aching… everything.

"You sort of are marrying it," Gwen said, helping Rose adjust her veil so it was perfectly centered on top of her head. The Little Alien Baby gave a kick to be acknowledged, and after flinching, Rose rubbed her stomach soothingly to calm it. It would be here any day now. She wondered why she wasn't freaking out more, but then she thought that maybe she'd been too anxious about her wedding to worry. Whatever it was, she wasn't complaining.

Jackie entered the room, looking the part of an elegant mother giving away her daughter. The lovely white suit with the matching hat almost made Rose want to laugh aloud, only because she never imagined she'd see her mother look so formal. Gwen and Tosh looked positively stunning in their matching green gowns and their hair done up in beautiful curls, pink flowers sticking out of the buns on the back of each of their heads. At seeing the sight of Rose, Jackie begun to tear up, and Rose could understand why. Her silk wedding dress was _incredible_, and she would consider ditching the Doctor to marry it if such a thing were legal.

Not really.

_Well, maybe_, she thought.

"You look beautiful, Rose," Jackie sniffed, trying to regain as much composure as possible. "Absolutely breathtaking."

"Thanks, Mum," she sighed. The waterworks were starting to form in her own eyes. She quickly dabbed them away before it turned into a contest of who could bawl their own eyes out more. Jackie did the same.

"Have you seen the Doctor? How is he?" Rose asked.

"I don't know what he and the Master did last night—or I suppose _drank_ is the appropriate term—but the two of them are more hung-over than cousin Mo on New Year's Day," Jackie answered, scoffing. "You'll be lucky if you ever get the I Do out of him."

"Serves him right for getting that wasted," muttered Rose.

"Jack's taking control of the situation. He'll fix them up fine," Tosh remarked.

"Fix them up how?" smirked Gwen.

Tosh laughed. "Well, not in the usual way, however much he likes the Master."

Rose giggled at the thought of Jack trying to woo the Master, something that would undoubtedly happen throughout the night. She continued to think about the wedding that was to occur in a matter of minutes and the hoped that the butterflies in her stomach wouldn't crowd Little Alien Baby.

* * *

The Doctor felt like crap. This was his wedding day, the day he was fully committing himself to the one person he loved, the person he was about to spend the rest of his life with, and he felt like total and utter rubbish. He groaned against the sleek wood of the Tardis bar (one of the many other rooms in the massive ship), an empty cup in his hand, waiting to be filled by the concoction Ianto was preparing for his and the Master's inhumane hangovers. The Master was equaled miserable beside him, slumped over with his head in his hand and a hollow expression on his face. The small roses in the breast pockets of each of their suits were more alive than they at that moment.

"Would you do me a favor?" the Doctor mumbled groggily, and the Master grunted his acknowledgment. "Shoot me with the laser screwdriver."

"No way, mate. If I get to shoot anyone with the laser screwdriver, it's gonna be me." He paused, only to let out a slight chuckle. "That's the name of an N*SYNC song." Then, just as quickly as he'd laughed, he frowned. "Oh, God, I'm still drunk."

"How much _did_ you drink last night?" asked an amused Jack as Ianto poured the special hangover remedy. The Doctor sniffed the contents of his glass and shuddered. Why was it that no one could make an appealing antidote for a hangover? He knew a countless number of people who were clever enough to take on the task. Once he was married (more importantly, if he didn't drop dead beforehand), he was going to cure the cure of the hangover once and for all.

"I dunno," the Doctor answered in a moan, "but I reckon it's approximately three quarters the stock of alcohol in the whole of Britain."

"More or less," the Master added. "Probably more."

"Feels like more."

"Feels like a _lot_ more."

"I should at least hope that you remember something," remarked Mickey from the end of the bar. "Getting that drunk, something memorable must have happened."

"There was a parrot…" The Master looked off into the distance.

"I don't remember a parrot," the Doctor snapped.

"There was too! And anyway, what the hell do you know? You had more to drink than I."

"Yeah, but I—Oh. Wait a second." The Doctor scowled. "Okay, there _may_ have been a parrot."

"Ha."

"Oh, just stop talking, _please_. That's the only thing I'll ever beg for."

A knock on the door echoed through the bar, and the Doctor and Master found it far too loud for their liking. An albino man in a suit—the Chairman of the planet Iris—poked his head into the room to tell them that the wedding was set to start in less than fifteen minutes. The Doctor thanked him and heard him shut the door before downing the rest of the hangover remedy, however repulsive it was. He loved Rose _that_ much. Despite its barely bearable taste, the cure worked fast, and the pounding in his head was slowly lifting.

"Ready to get this show on the road?" said Jack, twirling a lock of the Master's blonde hair around his finger, causing the Master to slap his hand away. Jack shrugged and took hold of Ianto's hand.

The Doctor straightened his tie, noting the incessant pounding of his two hearts, but trying to ignore them. He, the Master, Mickey, and the men of Torchwood headed out of the Tardis to the land of Iris, a planet famous for its lovely scenery and beautiful meadows, making it the perfect place to be married on. A large, white canopy waited in the particular meadow the Tardis was parked in. Most of the guests had arrived and were merrily chatting to kill the time. The Doctor blinked away his hangover, but the Master trudged behind him sulkily, practically leaning on his shoulder for complete support.

"I'm going to die," he groaned dramatically.

"You're not going to die," Owen replied.

"No, you don't get it. I am _going_ to _die_!"

"No, you're not!" hissed the Doctor. "Would it kill you to act mature for five minutes?"

The Master shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I'm going to die, anyway."

_Bloody hell_, the Doctor mentally cursed. _Rose and I should have eloped._

After taking position at the end of the aisle with the Master behind him, the Doctor danced on his heels, waiting for the moment for time to freeze. He fidgeted with his tie for about five minutes before Jack advised him to stop. What was taking Rose so long? Was she regretting her decision to marry him? No, that was ridiculous. What about Little Alien Baby? She wouldn't run off while nine months pregnant with his child. He didn't even think she could run in her condition.

The wedding march started. Guests settled into their seats. A young girl—the daughter of the Chairman of the planet Iris—entered the canopy, gliding down the aisle like a ballerina. The Doctor paid little mind to anything going on, not to Gwen nor Tosh when they came down the aisle, not even to the off-key humming the Master was doing behind him (which would have been highly irritating in any other circumstance). He kept on with his high-strung mind-rant, for some reason, desperate to believe that this was all too good to be true, that he didn't deserve a life like this or someone like his Rose, that—

He stopped mid-thought when his eyes settled on something green. All oxygen left his system.

* * *

Rose clung to her mother's arm as they stepped into the canopy, when every one of the guests stood upon her entrance. She locked eyes with the Doctor, who looked as if he'd had the wind brutally beaten out of him. Whether this was the reaction she was going for or not, it was amusing to see all the same. She strode down the aisle with her heart in her throat, for while the Doctor appeared to have become the standing-dead, the only way she was able to move was because of Jackie giving her a slight tug on her arm with each step. That, and Little Alien Baby was kicking her into stepping forward, which might have been the best provocation ever to get anybody to do anything, by having someone inside of you jam their foot into your intestines.

Rose watched the Doctor with every move she made. Slowly but surely, a broad, amazed smile grew on his face. She beamed and carried on until, after what seemed like a lifetime, she was standing before him and thinking that they were the only two people on the planet. The reverend spoke.

"Dearly beloved…"

"Green dress. That's a green dress," he whispered to her. "You are wearing a green dress."

"Yes, thank you for that lesson in colors, Doctor," she breathed back.

"But that's a green dress! That's what brides would wear on Gallifrey!"

"So I've heard."

The Doctor smirked at her. "You remembered."

"Of course I did, you twit. I love you, don't I? And anyway,"—she paused, so as not to be caught in the act of talking while the reverend waited to see if anyone would object to the wedding (the Master nearly did to be "funny," but the Doctor kicked him in the shin beforehand)—"this was the only one that didn't make Little Alien Baby make me feel nauseous over."

"Sure, sure. Blame it on the kid." Everything about him was smug, but his eyes twinkled with delight, and Rose had to force herself not to say her I Do too early before her cue.

The ceremony continued without the Doctor or Rose truly listening. Only when the vicar addressed them did they snap back into reality.

"Do you, Rose Marion Tyler, take this man to be your wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day on…"

Rose didn't think the minister could speak fast enough. In fact, it seemed now that he was talking in a horrifically sluggish, monotone voice that was clearly meant to drive her mental. When he finally finished the question, she managed to contain herself by saying a reserved (although still somewhat eager), "I do."

"And do you, Doctor, take this woman to be your wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day on…"

The Doctor bounced on the balls of his feet, waiting for the opportune moment to say the cliché that was required in a wedding. The fact that Rose was wearing a _green dress_ was the only reason he was able to remain calm and patient. He was positively giddy.

"I do," he spoke clearly, giving Rose a wink.

The vicar went on, "Then by my power as the head of the Church of Iris, I now pronounce you husband and wife."

Rose and the Doctor grinned broadly, hearts pounding in their chests.

"You may kiss the bride."

The crowd clapped (Jack and Owen whistled), and the Doctor and Rose turned to face each other, beaming brighter than the sun of Iris, which burned far brighter than most suns. The Doctor held Rose's chin in his hands as he went to lean in. Rose closed her eyes…

"NOBODY MOVE!"

Rose and the Doctor opened their eyes. They looked to the opposite end of the aisle, where a group of men stood with swords drawn, ready for a fight, should someone choose to have one.

"Excuse me," snapped Jackie, dabbing at her eyes. "What do you think you're doing?"

A man at the center of the group stepped forward, disregarding her inquiry. He didn't speak a word, but instead unrolled a scroll and showed it to the audience. The Doctor and Rose froze. The scroll was a wanted poster, and the picture on the parchment was no one other than the Master.

Everyone turned to the Time Lord in question.

He groaned. "_Bugger_."

"Master," said the front man of the group of police, "you're under arrest for attempted planetary domination, attempted murder, attempted thievery, escape from the law—"

"That's more your own fault! The galaxy needs better cops."

Apparently, this was the least brightest thing to say to a burly group of policemen, for the next thing that happened was the leader of the men motioning for his comrades to forcefully grab the Master, handcuff him, and shove him back up the aisle.

"You have the right to remain silent," the police leader told him smugly. "Anything you say—"

"Yes, yes, I know," the Master hissed. "If you really have done your job then you'll know that I'm a million times cleverer than you are, so I'd be _aware_ of what my bloody rights are."

The smirk on the face of the leading policeman vanished. He scowled and pulled the Master by the scruff of his neck, leading him out of the canopy. Before exiting completely, however, he turned to another man on his left and said, "Round 'em all up, take them in for questioning."

This was the second least brightest thing to say that day, because the moment the words left his mouth, the guests began to flee, terrorizing the wedding and disturbing the peace of the meadow (which they'd have to be taken in for, since disturbing the peace of one of Iris's meadows was a crime). All the Doctor and Rose could do was watch the scene—the scurry of aliens in front of them, the ruins their wedding was becoming—and wait for two of the policemen to come over and lead them away.

"Not so hard!" the Doctor snapped to the man holding Rose. "She's with child, in case you haven't noticed."

Rose actually hadn't noticed the particular rough handling the man dragging her away by the handcuffs was using. She didn't notice the fray of people being rounded up by the police. She didn't notice Gwen or Mickey try to elbow some of the men and escape (although she wished she had noticed). She only had her mind set on one thing, and oddly enough, it wasn't her new husband. It was the Master, and how much she truly, horribly, terrifically, and totally loathed him—and if the police didn't send him to be tortured, then she would willingly go and do the job herself.

* * *

"I'm telling you, we haven't done anything!" The Doctor proceeded to insist his party's innocence for what seemed like the millionth time, but his efforts were useless. Ever since his new mother-in-law—_yikes_—bit the Chief of the Iris Police, everyone who'd been obtained at the wedding was now locked in a holding cell with some snoring, presumably drunken man. The Master was sitting in the empty cell next door. Somehow, he'd gotten hold of an old plastic mug, so he was occupying himself by clanging that against the bars of the prison. The Doctor wished he could stretch his arms out long enough to snatch the cup out of his hands and stomp it into the ground, pretending it was the Master's head. Since he could not do this, however, he merely settled for grabbing the set of bars adjacent to the cell door and seething at his former companion.

"You! You bloody traitor!" he yelled, not caring who heard him or how angry he was becoming. "This is all your fault! And stop playing with that damn cup!"

The Master did stop, and he slowly turned to look up at the Doctor. "How is this _my_ fault? I haven't done anything."

The Doctor wanted to rip his own hair out. He was about to tell the Master off when Rose jumped in before he had the chance.

"'Haven't done anything'?" she snorted sharply. "Anything besides what, making yourself number one on the galaxy's most wanted?!"

"You're being a bit overdramatic, Snapdragon—which, come to think of it, is probably an excellent name for you, considering the state of mood you're in."

"Would you give it a rest, for all our sakes?" cried the Doctor, exasperated. "You lied to me! I let you travel with me, I trusted you; I even asked you if you were wanted by the law in any way, shape, or form, and you told me that you were a bajillion percent certain that you weren't!"

"Bajillion isn't a word."

"YOU RUINED MY WEDDING, MASTER! I'M GONNA BLOODY KILL YOU!" The Doctor didn't care if there was a barrier separating the two of them: He threw himself at the bars, his arms straining to grab something of the Master to destroy. He nearly succeeded, too, but the Master yelped and jumped back, settling himself on the dusty floor, cross-legged.

"Officer!" he shouted out. "I think you've got a rogue one!"

"_Master, get over here so I can strangle you_!"

"Doctor," Rose spoke softly, but the Doctor didn't hear her.

The Master rolled his eyes. "What kind of incentive is that? Honestly, I think that hangover's starting to get to you."

"Yes, you're correct. It is starting to get to me. And when I get out of here, you can bet that I'm going to _let_ it get to me, so that after I behead you, I can blame it on my lapse of judgment due to said hangover so then at least I'll have a better reason to kill you rather than the fact that I just really, really don't like you right now!"

"I thought you were going to strangle me, not behead me."

"Maybe I'll do both."

"Okay," the Master sighed skeptically. "Seems a little redundant, but I'm not one to judge."

"Doctor," Rose said more urgently, and this time, the Doctor heard her.

"Yes?" he said quickly, only to clear his throat and change tones, as he remembered he was not mad at Rose. "I mean, what's wrong?"

Rose looked at him in horror. "Doctor, I think it's time."

He blinked. "Time for what?"

"Time for… _you know_!"

"No, I don't know."

She gaped at him. "Yes! Yes, you do know!"

"I do?"

"YES!" she practically screamed. "Trust me, you know! The Master knows! Even that guy over there knows!" She pointed to the intoxicated man in the corner of the cell, now only half-asleep because his cell had gotten much too crowded for his liking.

"You know?" the Doctor asked him.

The man nodded. "Yeah, I know."

The Doctor frowned. Perhaps he _was_ still a little drunk.

"What are we talking about?" he asked, and Rose slapped a hand to her face.

"Doctor," the Master said, brave enough to approach the very bars the Doctor still gripped, "you're flower-bride is in labor. You're about to become a daddy."

The Doctor paled, both of his hearts threatening to burst out his chest. "Oh."

He blinked. It felt as though the air had been kicked and punched and hurled out of him.

He fell to the floor of the jail cell, unconscious.

Rose groaned. "Not again!"

In the other cell, the Master stared at his Time Lord counterpart with glee. "I'm so glad I chose to travel with you lot! You two are fun!" He clapped his hands and laughed, acting the exact opposite of how everyone—bride and groom especially—were feeling at that very moment of unfolding insanity.

**I know, I know, it's cliche for a woman in a show or story or something to go into labor on her wedding day, but I couldn't help myself. It fit with the story. Sorry if it's extremely tacky. I just hope the arrest was enough to spice things up. :)**


	14. The Waiting Room

**Wow. I just realized I have nothing author's note-y related to say. I wrote this chapter, and now I'm posting it. What a crazy life I lead.**

**Thank you for your support, thank you SOOOO much! There isn't much left of the story left (sad *shedding tears, being fried by the computer because I cried over a few electrical thingies*), so I really appreciate all the love, which is seriously the only thing that kept me going. And yes, electrical "thingies" is the correct term.**

**...**

**Okay then. lol.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who_. You want a list of things I do own? A hairbrush. Some cotton candy. The box that holds my hopes and dreams. But _Doctor Who_ is not on that list.**

The Doctor did not know why he chose the planet Iris to be married on. There were thousands of other more agreeable planets to have a wedding ceremony, and yet, he chose Iris. It was probably because of the beautiful scenery that he knew Rose would love (thus earning him brownie points, which weren't always mandatory but nevertheless helpful) and the kind communities he'd been accustomed to knowing over the years. Now, however, as he sat out in the waiting room with most of the wedding party, tapping his foot anxiously, hearts pounding like mad inside his chest, he wished he'd picked a different planet, _any other_ planet besides Iris.

Iris was old-fashioned. This was a refreshing trait to see in planets nowadays, especially as they became more modernized, but now it was dreadful.

Iris did not allow soon-to-be fathers in the delivery room.

He'd fought this ridiculous concept, oh yes. Probably more than he'd ever fought for anything. What had happened was this: he was allowed to wait with her in her hospital room until the contractions worsened, and when she was definitely about to have the baby, the nurses kicked him out by order of hospital policy and wheeled his new wife away. After threatening a few doctors and yelling at a couple of nurses, he was nearly sentenced to be thrown back in the prison cell he'd only just gotten out of (upon insisting that the Chief of Police release him and Rose and the wedding guests because Rose had gone into labor, and it seemed law enforcement was a squeamish bunch). Unfortunately for his dignity, the Doctor had to back off of lashing out at the medical staff for two reasons:

1: They controlled the meds that would be given to Rose.

And 2: He really, really, _really_ did not want to go back to the jailhouse to share a cell with the Master.

So he gave up (still pouting) and sulked in the waiting room, with Jack comforting him. The Doctor continued to replay the moments he'd had with Rose before she left with the nurses and her mother.

"Do you need anything?" he asked her for the umpteenth time, and she laughed, if not bitingly, which he didn't blame her for. He expected that he was not her favorite person at the moment.

"Honestly, Doctor, I think I'm as comfortable as I'm going to get," she reassured him, patting his hand.

To be honest, he felt useless. Rose was in pain and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. "I'm sorry about the wedding. And the Master's existence."

She smiled weakly. "All of that hardly seems important now. We can always have another wedding, perhaps at some place with less people… and mental criminals passing off as the bane of our existences."

"Are you saying we should elope, even though we're already married?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised, Rose. I thought you had loved the idea of a fanciful wedding."

She scoffed. "Give me a break. After today, all I could ever want for a second wedding would be a vicar and a nice, small shrubbery to carry as I walk down the hall." She gave him a small smile. "Maybe we could elope on Ariellus."

The Doctor looked puzzled. "How do you know about Ariellus?"

"Don't you remember? It was what you were rambling on about when I told you I was pregnant with Little Alien Baby."

The memory swam back into the Doctor's mind. "Oh, that's right! You were freaking out and I was completely oblivious."

"Hadn't been the first time."

He chuckled. "Indeed, it hadn't."

The moment felt so normal, so much like the old days, when they would be laughing and joking around the console of the Tardis instead of waiting for the moment when they would get to meet their child. Neither noticed the current situation and continued to revel in their peace.

"Is it all going to be different?" Rose spoke quietly. Out of all the concerns they'd had involving the baby, this was the one thing they always managed to veer clear of, merely because they feared the answer, which they both knew perfectly well. It seemed they could no longer play the avoiding game now.

The Doctor answered, "Yes, but I don't believe it will be necessarily worse. I mean, we will have to ease up on the life-threatening situations a bit, and there will be babysitting moments to replace the running, but if you really think about it, you and me, we're all about new adventures, aren't we?"

Rose flashed him a brilliant grin that disguised all traces of pain. "This may be the best of 'em all."

"That's the spirit! And anyway, imagine later years. We could be running just as much once again, and at that time, we'll have a little Doctor or Rose trailing behind us. Maybe even a few of them."

Rose gave him a pointed look.

"Too soon?" he asked.

"You can bet your funny hair, it's too bloody soon." On perfect timing to add to the drama, she took in a sharp breath and squeezed his hand tightly whilst bearing another contraction. The Doctor hid a wince. After a few minutes, Rose eased her grip and let out a distinctive moan, shifting in the hospital bed uncomfortably. She did not feel less irritated. Like she'd done with him (but not nearly as hard), the Doctor clutched her hand tightly, pressing a kiss to the center of her palm.

"Let's go to Barcelona after this," she sighed.

The corner of his mouth curved up. "Have the need to see some nose-less dogs?"

"It's all I've ever wanted in life, and I hear nose-less dogs are the only thing the planet is good for." She smiled as the Doctor laughed, relishing in the precious moments they had left before their lives changed forever.

It felt like the time spent with Rose had been ages ago. The Doctor now stared at the wall opposite him, taking to brooding rather than feeling sorry for himself. Shockingly, the wall was of no help to lift his spirits, and its blank gaze back at him made him feel even angrier.

_Now I know I'm going insane_.

"Hey, Doc!"

Since they were in a hospital, the Doctor almost didn't look up, certain that someone was referring to any one of the professionals walking past. It was the voice that got to him, that stung him to the core and absently made him think about how horrible the universe was. He looked up, scowling at the Master, who grinned brightly.

"Miss me?"

"Not particularly."

The Master chuckled and took up the seat that Jack had left behind when he went to find some coffee not a few minutes ago.

"How did you get out?" The Doctor cast a side glare but didn't turn to face the Master. Giving him the satisfaction of a dramatic grimace would only boost the Master's merriment more.

"Of what?" the Master teased. "The slammer? The pokey? The clink?" He leaned back, placing his hands behind his head. "I may be a criminal, but I _am_ a very important man, Doctor. I have connections."

"You beat the guard out of his money, didn't you?"

"Ah, but it was the Chief himself, and he wasn't so easy to win over. We had to strike up a bargain."

The Doctor sensed dangerous territory. "What kind of bargain?"

"The best kind!" The Master was practically tap dancing, he was so smug and happy.

"Master…" The Doctor finally did swivel to meet his eyes, and while the Master was somehow finding everything in the world lovely and beautiful, the Doctor couldn't remember a time when he felt more terrified. "What did you do?"

"Well, the only reason they let me out _now_ is 'cause of all the begging I had to do—and the extra money I paid them—so I could get here in time for the little Halfling to be born. When all this is over, I'm gonna need you to come back to the station to sign some stuff, saying that you'll keep me as your charge until they deem my parole unnecessary."

The Doctor's eyes flared. He could have slapped the Master. "_What_?"

"It's official! Thanks to Iris's awful excuse for law enforcement, we're roomies!" The Master threw his arms around the Doctor, ignoring the automatic cringing coming from the Doctor's part. The Master didn't have to use his impeccable skills of intellect to sense the Doctor's distaste. "What's the matter? You still angry? If there's something you want to say, then say it."

"Oh, there are a lot of things I'd like to say to you right now. Sadly, we're still in the presence of a vicar." The Doctor nodded to the reverend of the wedding ceremony, sitting in one of the chairs and reading a magazine, claiming that he had nothing else to do for that day, and that this was the most excitement he'd had in ages, so he might as well stick around to see if anything else should happen.

"Fine. "The Master rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry for ruining your wedding by getting everyone arrested. But, if you really think about it, there are tons of worse things that could have occurred."

"Enlighten me," the Doctor snapped. "I've failed to think of them."

"Well… the planet could have been blown up and everyone, brutally killed."

The Doctor took a sweet second to consider this. He couldn't help but crack a slight smile. "I _suppose_ that's true."

"Exactly. Look at the bright side of life, Doc. And anyway, if you object to this little 'proposition' of mine involving my hitching a ride with you, Fuchsia, and Little Alien Baby—and if said child turns out to be a girl—I can always name the kid something horrid."

"That's blackmail!"

"So I've picked some things up while I stayed in the Big House. Sue me." He paused. "Don't sue me, on second thought. I don't have any more money." The Master met the Doctor's gaze, and on this rare occasion, there wasn't a hint of pure madness or mischief or overall annoyance in his eyes. "Besides, we both know that you'll never be able to get rid of _me_."

"I have Rose," the Doctor told him squarely, but he knew the truth to the Master's words all too well.

"Yes, you have Delphinium. But what happens when you two lovebirds don't meet eye-to-eye on some instances? You're married now. You certainly can't tell your feelings to each other."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "You don't understand anything, do you?"

The Master shrugged. "Perhaps not. But one thing I do understand is you, and I understand her—to some extent—and I understand you and her together, and I understand that the kid you two are going to raise won't ever grasp the concept of normal time zones, and I understand that I don't understand the point of a government _unless_ it's being ruled by me. So, really, that's five things I understand. Well, six, if you count cartoons."

"You know, for someone who doesn't fancy humans, you certainly act very much like one."

The Master looked appalled. "_Pardon_ _moi_, but I think just threw up a little."

"Oh, well, how can anyone not '_pardon_' you when you're so classy?" the Doctor snorted.

The Master ignored the comment and stared at the wall (the one that was only built to be stared at), completely silent for a matter of seconds. He bit his lip and finally asked, "Would you have left me back in 1859, even after giving me the parts to fix my ship?"

The Doctor paused, but the hesitation didn't last for long. "No, I wouldn't have."

"Knew it."

"I can always take you back—and perhaps then, I won't give you what's required to fix your ship."

"Oh, don't even try, Doctor. After all, you're going to be too busy with Little Alien Baby to put any truth into your pathetic threats."

Minutes were beginning to feel like days now. Surely, the Doctor had waited a whole century by now. Or perhaps time had slowed down in the hospital, perhaps there was some kind of barrier around the facility that made time go by at a sluggish pace, just for the purpose of seeing the Doctor tear his hair out. How bad would it be for him if he went into the Tardis and traveled just a bit further into the future, till it reached the moment when—

"You're doing that thing with your foot again," Jack said, interrupting his mental rant.

"I'm not doing anything with my foot," the Doctor protested.

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"_No_, I'm not."

"Are too."

"Are not!"

"Is this really the sophisticated intellect humans—and you, Doctor—have to offer?" spoke the Master, finishing the doodle of a dinosaur on his left forearm.

"You're the one drawing Barney!" said Mickey.

The Master set the cap back on the permanent marker. "Slander all you want. I am an artiste."

"I can't take this anymore!" the Doctor groaned, suddenly jumping to his feet. "I have to know what's going on. If I don't hear what's happening within the next two minutes, I'm going to—"

"Doctor?"

He froze. Recognizing the voice as Jackie Tyler's, the Doctor realized that he'd never been so thrilled to hear the wonderful, wonderful voice of his beaming mother-in-law.

Without a word, he spun around and followed Jackie out of the waiting room, finally ready to meet the Little Alien Baby.


	15. Little Alien Baby

**We are reaching the end! There's only one more chapter after this :( and then, like Emeril, BAM! It's finito. I don't know what I'm going to do afterwards. Maybe I'll start a random cooking show. Or perhaps I'll just lie on the couch and do nothing for hours. I think I'll go with Option B; except for when _Doctor Who_ is on, in which case, I'll move my head (which is a grand thing, indeed). I'm so excited about Flesh And Stone Saturday!**** I loved Time Of The Angels, and the preview for F&S (yeah, I went to that abbreviated level) looks amazing. So, yeah. I'm pumped.**

**Once again, thanks to all of you who've made it this far with me and have liked what they've read. I never thought it'd be this liked, or liked at all, really. But I adore you all, seriously.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Doctor Who_, Sam-I-Am. I do not own it in a house. I do not own it with a mouse. I do not own it here or there. I do not own it anywhere! Nor do I own green eggs and ham. I want to eat some, but I don't own them, sadly. Green chickens do.**

The Doctor had traveled through time and space; he'd battled creatures beyond even _his_ wildest dreams. He'd known aliens and people from the past and the future, had met up with old enemies and friends and (more recently) half-enemies, half-friends whom he could live without but would never admit that he might miss that person at least a smidge. He was one of the last of his kind and his constant companion was a time-traveling space ship. He'd met a human with one heart and fallen in love with her. Throughout each of his regenerations, the Doctor had witnessed too much of everything, probably more than any one person should, so by now, nothing should have come as a surprise to him. However, here he was, standing over his wife's hospital bed, completely rendered speechless by the little girl in her arms.

_Better than any alien. Ever._

Her porcelain face was framed by thick, auburn curls, which sparked gold and bright red in just the perfect light. She had his brown eyes—_his_ eyes—that gazed up at the world around her with a curiosity that may have exceeded his natural instincts of intrigue, but she had Rose's face, her mouth and cheeks and the crinkle of her brow when she frowned—or so he thought she would soon, when the baby had a reason to frown. There was something else about her that the Doctor couldn't quite put his finger on, but he shrugged it off as a trait that only came with being a Time Lord/human combo.

"Here," Rose whispered, extending the child to the Doctor gently. Her hair was matted in sweat and she looked as if she was about to pass out, but the Doctor knew that there wasn't a chance in hell that she would be missing an opportunity to visit with her daughter, at least not for the moment. The Doctor carefully took the fragile creature into his arms and stared at her as she stared at him. There was no denying it: He was gone, and here was this strange person holding a baby that was his, and he was at more peace than he had ever been and, at the same time, utterly freaked out beyond belief.

The girl blinked.

_Wow_.

"Cool, right?" said Rose, barely able to hide a smile.

The Doctor looked from her to the Little Alien Baby and back. A wide grin spread on his face.

"What have we done?" he said, and Rose's laughter was contagious, a plague that no doctor in the facility could cure. Little Alien Baby Girl blinked at her parents some more before closing her eyes and falling into one of the first slumbers of her life so far.

It was a dastardly mistake, having the entire wedding party at the hospital, and the nursing staff couldn't have agreed more. Jack was already stalking the baby girl, fawning over her and going on about how he was "Uncle Jack." Ianto, Gwen, Owen, and Tosh had halfway filled Rose's room with balloons that screamed in various colors, "IT'S A GIRL!" although they'd eventually run out of balloons with words written in English and had to resort to getting the ones in the Irisian language. Mickey and the Master had challenged each other to see who could decorate Rose's room the best for the baby's arrival—and the competition had been a disaster, ending up in the both of them throwing streamers at each other until Rose and three very angry nurses kicked them out. Even the vicar—who, sure enough, was still there—had picked up some sherry for the celebration. The only person to remain completely calm and helpful was Jackie, for she was the one who physically kicked everyone out of Rose's hospital room after Rose verbally banned them from her simple sanctuary of sleep.

Little Alien Baby Girl slept beside her mother, unaware that she was being watched by her three relatives. The knock on the door did not wake her, but in fear that it might sooner or later, Jackie quietly crept to the door and opened it quietly. The Master popped his head in.

"I thought we told you to get out," Rose whispered as the Master stepped over to her bed and Jackie shut the door.

"You say a lot of things," the Master snorted softly. "I don't really pay much mind to them anymore."

"Because you used to so often," the Doctor scoffed from his chair on the other side of the bed.

The Master brushed him off with a wave of his hand and leaned over the little plastic cradle Little Alien Baby Girl was napping in. Rose saw him frown. "What's the matter?" she asked, concerned but groggy.

"She has my nose," the Master stated, bewildered.

The Doctor's head snapped up. "No she doesn't."

"I swear, she does."

Rose lifted herself up on her elbow to look over the sleeping child beside her bed. It was difficult to determine it from any other nose. Squinting, she glanced between her baby and the Master over and over again, until finally, a similarity could be made. Her eyes widened.

"What the hell?" she shrieked, only to slap a hand over her mouth. Luckily, the baby didn't wake.

"Oh no," moaned the Doctor, burying his face in his palm. "That bloody ship."

The Master met his gaze. "Please don't tell me the Tardis did this."

"All right, but I'd be lying."

"But how is that possible?" inquired Jackie.

"In some cases of Time Lord pregnancy, it's dangerous to travel in a Tardis because it can prove to be problematic… especially when there is more than one Time Lord," explained the Master. "Sometimes, in an early stage of development, the energy of a Tardis can transfer a Time Lord's regenerative energy to the womb through a single nudge, even if it doesn't belong to the father."

"So you're saying that my daughter has your DNA, too?" Rose stared at the two Time Lords in horror.

The Master straightened, frowning. "Well, it isn't the end of the world!"

"I didn't even think about that consequence!" exclaimed the Doctor. "By the time the Master came into the picture, I thought for sure that stage would have been passed."

"It's a perfectly good nose. It can smell, there are two nostrils. Nothing terrifying about it." The Master froze. "Holy sh… eets!" he corrected himself after seeing the pointed look Jackie was giving him. "I'm a father!"

"You are not!" the Doctor growled.

"Are, too! It is my nose."

"We don't know that for sure. It could just be a similar nose."

"You're deluded."

"Says the man who can't be in the same room with peanut butter because he thinks, and I quote: 'It's peculiar.'"

"You've got a sonic screwdriver!"

"Yeah, so?"

"So…? So what does a screwdriver need to be sonic for?"

"HEY!" Rose hissed, pointing to the sleeping baby. Everyone held their breath while the child let out a soft yawn, one that made every heart—all six of them—melt away. She went back to her own little newborn dreams, and the rest of her family breathed again.

"No one tell Jack about this! He will have a field day," Rose insisted.

A moment passed for everything to sink in. The baby's faint breathing acted as a comforting background noise.

"Have you thought up a name yet?" Jackie asked the Master quietly.

The Master, resorting back to his usual swagger, settled himself down in a chair next to the Doctor. Rose thought she saw the Master finger something in his coat that looked like a flask, but if it was that, he ultimately decided against using it. "Well," he said, "I have thought about it long and hard."

"I doubt that," the Doctor mumbled, but Rose smiled, remembering the book of baby names she'd discovered in the Master's room.

The Master put his hand out, his palm facing the Doctor. "Talk to the hand. Anyway, at first, I was going to name the kid something remotely bad in spite of you, but since that nose is the only two percent of fatherhood I know, I now have the added pressure of coming up with a decent identity that will stay with this child forever. Can you imagine how daunting of a task this is for me?"

"Actually, we lost the bet, so no, we _can't_."

"Hand, Doc. And, I mean, what's in a name—?"

"Master, are you going to give a straight answer or not?" Rose cried. She found it remarkable that she could be so exhausted and yet, so eager to hear what the Master was going to say next. The wait was immense. She thought she was going to burst into flames if she didn't know soon what he had finally decided on for her daughter's name. It would be very unfortunate for the child to grow up with a father and a sort-of father who already had issues of their own, issues that would probably never be resolved or at least reduced to a simple squabble if she wasn't around.

"Serena."

Rose almost missed the single word that escaped the Master's lips.

"What?" she asked, blinking.

"Serena. That's her name." He looked between the Doctor and Rose. "It means calm, right? Calm, which we don't have. And I was watching _Sailor Moon_ at the time I decided on it, and she's half-alien, and the moon is in space. Aliens come from space. Ergo, Serena."

"Serena," the Doctor said, testing the name out. "Serena Tyler."

"It's lovely," murmured Jackie.

"It's perfect," said Rose. She leaned over, brushing her fingers against the soft titian hair of her daughter, Serena Tyler, half-Time Lord, half-human, and all completely and totally asleep.


	16. One Month Later

**Okay, folks. This is it. We've reached the final chapter. It's grand for the Doctor and Rose and Little Alien Baby, but a tragedy for us. Why, it feels like just yesterday when I wrote the first chapter. Geez, I make it seem like we're all about to die. Let's take a moment and think about something we find cute and uplifting!**

**...**

**Done! I thought of little baby chicks. The sad thing is, I really _did_ stop and think about this for a minute.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Doctor Who_! Stop thinking these lies!**

**And here we go. (*tear*) The final chapter of Ariellus Must Wait. Enjoy. Cue the dramatic music.**

*~One Month Later~*

The vastness of the universe was something that—before she had met the Doctor—she had never truly realized. It was there, and she was in it, and that was that. But when that fateful day at Henrik's sealed her fate forever, she slowly came in terms with the fact that there was more to the universe than Earth, far more indeed. Planets and races with their own problems, sights just waiting to be seen by one Rose Tyler, and she was equally enthralled to see them as well.

Situations had changed, however. Rose was no longer the shop girl from Henrik's, trying to find a good path for her life. She had found that path. She met the Doctor, and because of him, had seen countless things beyond imagination. He introduced her to the universe, and she and the galaxy had far too much in common to go back to their old ways of not knowing one another now.

Rose sat in the doorway of the Tardis entrance, her feet dangling in space, while Serena slept peacefully in her arms. Rose still didn't think she knew too much about the universe, but she did know that out of all its worlds, there wasn't another place she'd rather be.

Serena had proved to be a quiet child, but somehow, so impossible. How could such a little thing be so exhausting? But it was plain to anyone that she took after the Doctor immensely, and not just because she had two hearts (although, unlike the Doctor, she could still live without one of them). Her curiosity of everything was the most obvious factor, from her toys to her crib (the Doctor figured she was already trying to determine how to make a prison escape, something she'd more than likely accomplish by the time of her first birthday), to the Tardis itself. The Tardis enjoyed her company just as much; perhaps more than it liked the Doctor.

She was fearless. When Rose and the Doctor had taken her with them to the planet Plipe, they had come across the fiercest creature of the planet, the Iron-Toothed Viper, a giant snake with poisonous iron teeth. Serena never cried. A slight whimper upon leaving the Viper behind, but never a cry. She'd already seen a handful of aliens in her short life, and not a one scared her, save for maybe the ones that pointed guns to any of her parents' heads.

If some of the Master's genes had been passed on to Serena, then that would have explained why the girl had such a knack for getting into trouble. In only a month, she'd managed to cause an uproar between two planets, just because her crying had been taken as "offensive" in terms of foreign social customs. Jackie continued to voice her opinion, that a newborn shouldn't be traipsing around so many dangerous places, but Serena hated being away from her parents, and quite frankly, her parents hated being away from her.

And anyway, more than she'd caused uproar, she was also the reason why a couple of planets were currently at peace. Rose smiled. Not even a year old and Serena was already politically active.

She had cried when the Master left. Rose wouldn't admit it, but she had cried a bit too, and she knew for a fact that she saw traces of sadness in the Doctor's eyes as well. Apparently, the agreement to keep the Master under the Doctor's watch hadn't been enough, or so thought the scorned planets the Master had lawfully broken. He promised that once everything blew over (and he was sure it would), then he would come back to mooch off of the residents of the Tardis again. Even still, things hadn't been entirely the same, but Rose was confident that he'd keep his word, if not for them, then for his slight-daughter, whom he clearly adored even if he'd never admit it.

Just as Rose begun nodding off (which was probably a bad thing while sitting on the edge of a machine traveling through space), she heard someone sit down beside her. She smiled at the Doctor and leaned on his shoulder.

_Yay_, she thought. _A pillow_.

Which was the whole reasoning behind getting married, to have someone to laze on when you lacked something comfortable.

"Mind if I hold her?" he asked. Rose shook her head and gently put Serena in his arms.

"I wonder what she's thinking," the Doctor mused.

"She's probably wondering why all these people keep staring at her so much."

The Doctor laughed softly. "Already we've proven ourselves worthy enough to be freak parents. Congrats to you, Rose."

"And to you, Doctor."

When Serena opened her little mouth to yawn, Rose and the Doctor were stunned into silence.

"So," the Doctor whispered, shifting Serena to his other side, "what now? We can go anywhere you want. Take comfort in that before we're sentenced to go make peace on some planet that looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book—unless, you want to go visit Dr. Seuss." His eyes widened, excitement sparkling in them like firecrackers, if one were to have firecrackers in their eyes without having their head explode afterwards. "_That_ would be _so_ cool."

Rose giggled. "Nine hundred years, and what are you? Nothing more than a child."

"I have an old soul, Rose. An old soul that loves merry-go-rounds and carnivals and cake." He paused. "And bananas. Nearly forgot that."

"We could go see if there are any futuristic baby things for Serena," Rose mentioned. "Of course, she probably won't understand any of it, given that she can't even walk yet, but it'll be cool for us, to play with all these toys and not look weird 'cause we're so old."

"I reckon that's the whole point of having a baby. I can't wait until she's a bit older. Think of all the Legos we could have!"

"She'd probably get sick of 'em."

"Oh, who cares? They'll be all over the Tardis, all these little buildings and cars and boats and stuff. We could even _build_ a Tardis! She'll just have to deal."

Rose looked over her daughter. "We're gonna torture you. I am so sorry."

"We could go to Disneyland."

"Or back to New Earth."

"To show off our New Baby. Or maybe Lord and Lady Fairaway would fancy meeting Serena."

"How scandalous, Doctor! What will they think that we do on our travels?"

"Exactly what we always do on our travels. Run and run, down a few energy drinks and… well, have a baby. Apparently."

Rose smiled, nestling herself against the Doctor with Serena in between them. Gazing out of the Tardis now, the universe underneath the tips of her toes, Rose finally found her place. Forget Jimmy Stone, forget her past as a shop girl, forget the Rose that only wanted to travel because she knew there was something bigger than what she knew.

Rose Tyler was the bloody Bad Wolf. And the Bad Wolf was a mother, which was a million different things. Amazing was one of them.

"Should we call Serena the Bad Cub?" Rose asked bluntly, only to realize how awful the name sounded. She mentally swore never to put her daughter through that kind of torture, if she was able to keep her daughter from anything.

The Doctor snorted. "Let's just hope the Master doesn't catch wind of the nickname, or else Little Alien Baby really will kill us when she's older."

As if she was trying to input her opinion without actually trying, Serena squirmed in the Doctor's arms a little, her lip curling slightly in disgust. Rose and the Doctor beamed at her.

"Well, she knows what she likes," Rose laughed lightly.

"She does indeed. We ought to beware. Serena Tyler, defender of the universe."

"Unless we muck up on this whole parenting business. Then it could be 'destroyer of the universe.'"

The Doctor shook his head, his brown hair falling over his eyes a bit. Having a baby meant less time to work on how one's hair should stick up, so nowadays, it was either flat or everywhere at once. However, it wasn't like the latter was much different from any other time.

"I'm not worried," he said. "Whatever she becomes, the universe will still know her name."

"Just like her dad," Rose sighed. She allowed Serena to take her index finger with that firm grip infants always—yet still surprisingly—seem to have. Even if she broke her finger, Rose figured she wouldn't mind. She adored the tiny creature too much to mind.

"Just like _both_ her parents," the Doctor corrected. He kissed the top of Serena's smooth forehead and then did the same with Rose, lingering a bit longer against her skin. Then, he reeled back quite quickly, his eyes blazing with that unnamable excitement that only he could ever know of. "How does Ariellus sound to you now?"

Rose grinned. "Swimmingly perfect."

The two burst into their habitual laughter at stupid jokes, just a bit softer for the baby's sake, and they found that Rose's answer applied to how just about everything was, at least for that moment. They truly believed that Ariellus would not have to wait for them much longer.

Fin

**I don't know why I said "Fin." I mean, that's what you're supposed to say when something is finished, I get that, but there was really no purpose. I just felt like it. And anyway, you have to have a funny bone to get: Ariellus is a fish planet... and then "Fin"? Like, a fishy fin? LOL. I'm hilarious. Or just really stupid.**

**But we'll never know!**

**I know I've said this a million times before, but I mean it every time, just like I mean it now: I totally and completely appreciate every bit of your love and support. It makes me smile like the Chesire Cat every time. Thank you for your awesomeness throughout this whole story!**

**And remember, don't let then turkeys get you down.**

**Whatever that means.**

**Peace out.**


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